matti_koskinen

4x5 pinhole, caffenol-c paper negative<div></div>

<p>I have an old Tamron 2.8/135, which I found in 1980 in a camera shop for 100 FIM. it was originally for Minolta SRT, but hacked it and got the Canon mount adapter working. I took several pics with Canon FT and afterwards with AE-1 Program. I have a Canon FD to Sony A adapter, but quality was quite bad, mainly of hack. It was bit misaligned. Now as my beercan Minolta 4.0/70-200 broke, I took it apart and today attached the lens mount to Tamron.<br>

As the lens is all manual, I have really trouble with focusing it. Most cases, if not oo, focusing is bit off, although I try my best with my weak eye to adjust focus. When a fine detail looks like in focus on camera, but taking the pic,even stopped down, some parts are out-of-focus, and always the subject. The nearby items are in focus, and 100% viewing shows them really sharp. There's absolutely no chromatic aberration, and things in focus are tack sharp. But the focusing problem is really annoying. Manual focus with Tamron 55-200 works fine with Alpha 700. I've set the eye-correction in camera to best compensate my left eye. It's not motion blur, as the lens is quite fast, and shutter speeds are from 1/500 up. Also it's not just the center of the lens to be out-of-focus,because other parts are as well OOF. But the mystery is that there are sharp areas, so the lens is not quite dead yet.</p>

<p>Any ideas?<br>

tnx<br>

-matti</p>

<p>thanks guys. the apps are in <a href="www.mattikoskinenphoto.com/code"> www.mattikoskinenphoto.com/code</a> <br>

Marc, never occured to me that Mac App Store could be used.</p>

<p>-matti</p>

 

<p>As an unsuccessful photographer and a former Nokia Networks software engineer, I created two free 64-bit OS X 10.6 apps. One is for deconvolution of images and another for upscaling preserving edges. They use OpenCV image library and fftw3 library. Everything is contained in the apps, so just installing to /Applications from the dmgs is all that's needed. Please don't clutter this forum with bugs, complaints etc but email me directly from the web-page. The code can be found at www.mattikoskinenphoto.com/code I'll post on the web-page the sources soon, after I've commented them and polished them. Porting to other OS's is possible,esp. Linux, Windows is more tricky.<br>

Have fun</p>

<p>-matti</p>

 

<p>Sure I've tried D&S, but it still leaves some specks visible in ref image. If this can be done in NIkon NX2, there ought to be a way to do it Photoshop.</p>

 

<p>I tried taking pinhole photos with Sony A-700 with an extension tube and hole drilled on the body cap and attached pinhole from Polaroid pinhole cam. But sensor dust is a major problem with pinholes.Haven't noticed sensor dust with lens images, but pinholes and infinite depth of field shows them clearly. Spotting lots of dust is so slow. I took a reference photo with nothing but the specks and I have tried to remove based on the ref image specks from pinhole photos, but haven't find a good method, creating mask from the specks, different layer blends etc. What would be a good method? As the dust sits always in the certain positions with pinholes, there should be some action in photoshop to remove the dust. I blowed some of the dust away with blower bulb, but there still remains dust on the sensor, which, depending of the image, is annoying. <br>

thanks<br>

-matti</p>

 

<p>I use mac with latest snow leopard, and starting Photoshop CS5, I always get this message: Could not import the clipboard because the parser module cannot parse the clipboard. Also clicking in Finder tiff-file gives this error: The document “test.tiff” could not be opened. Photoshop cannot open files in the “Adobe Photoshop TIFF file” format. Opening the same file from File-menu works ok. Photoshop is running 64-bit mode and is the latest 12.0.1. I googled this, but didn't find anything relevant. What's going on?</p>

<p>thanks,</p>

<p>-matti</p>

 

<p>thanks for the info. I really appreciate it. Joe, I've totally forgotten the preflashing. I made some tests and settled down to covering the neg with a sheet of plain white paper and flashing the roof light just as fast I could switch it on and off. I preflashed in the film holder and there's a hint of the boarders of the holder, but the paper itself doesn't seem to be fogged a bit. With these negs I could get nice tonality! Second thing to do, is to try #00 filter I've used also in one pinhole cam.<br>

The negs look very sharp, when I look at them with a loupe, but scanning with 1600 dpi (max, optical resolution of my Epson 1660 Photo) I get quite soft scans. Somewhere on the net I read that the radius of sharpening should be dpi/150. On the monitor the image looks sharp, but actual pixels-mode show softness, and the 13x19 print isn't as crisp, I'd like to. The paper texture is also visible.<br>

Any sharpening tips? I ordered a HP Z2100 24" printer, as the price was only 1950€. HP's starting price is $3900! so I think it was a good deal. Also ordered a Bulldog 4x5 kit, in order to get even better LF cam. Don't want a Sinar or Linhof yet ;-). I'll stick to paper negs for time being, as my wet darkroom isn't suitable for developing negs (only monobath might be viable). And don't have a LF neg scanner either.<br>

thanks<br>

-matti</p>

<p>I got finally my homemade camera sturdy enough to shoot some pictures. I started by applying own hacks to diy cameras found on the net. The bellows are black cardboard and hockey tape as in Instructables and lens is Rodenstock ysarex 127/4.7.<br>

Now trying the camera with Kodak Polymax rc II negatives, the ISO looks like depending on the lighting. Outdoors calculating exposure, the paper acts like ISO 25, indoors 12. Using the ISO 6, as in my pinhole cameras over-exposes really badly. I develop in Agfa Neutol 60 sec. Has this something to do with resiprocity? The longer the exposure, the lower the ISO? Or is this because the colour temp outdoors is bluer than tungsten light indoors, and as the paper is more sensitive to blue, causes this change? Knowing the change helps exposing properly.Just wondering the cause of the dramatic change.<br>

tia</p>

<p>-matti</p>

 

<p>thanks a lot, googling around didn't find the page.<br>

thanks again</p>

<p>-matti</p>

<p>My friend found from a fleamarket this lens very cheaply but as he don't own suitable camera body, I bought it from him as it fits my Sony A700. But something he did, made one lens loose inside. I tried it and the focusing motor works, but of course the loose lens makes the lens not to focus. I've tried to open the beercan, and got the frontmost lens off, but then I don't know how to get the the second lens group off. There are very small screws I haven't been able to open, because of lacking suitable small screwdriver. I'm going to get a jeweler's screwdriver set and try to open the screws, but I wonder if that would loosen the lens group. Anybody ever opened a lens like this or something other Minolta lens and could give me any guidance?<br>

As it's full frame lens, it would work with A900 or A850, if I ever get rich enough to buy a full-frame dslr.</p>

<p>thanks<br>

-matti </p>

I changed the magenta and cyan carts now. The ink levels of the remaining inks didn't drop as dramatically as in the first time. Actually the drop was very small. Now remembering, the yellow ink which was about 50% full, didn't drop so badly in the first place. Only the inks that showed full, dropped this 25%. Second cart change made them drop perhaps only 1-2%, so it seems it was the first time only. Which is ok, but now I know and hopefully others too.

I have my printer constantly on, so the cleaning cycles happen very seldom. Actually I had had only one cleaning cycle, when the printer sat idle one day and the other day I started to print, it made cleaning cycle automatically.

Maybe the ink level indicators don't tell the whole truth, priming the head first time consumes surely ink, but that didn't show in the levels.

 

thanks for your replies

 

-matti

What's the point of having individual cartridges? I got my Epson R1800 a week

ago. I printed appr. 65 A4 sized prints (mostly B&W with QTR) and few super-B

prints, until the matte black run out. Well, I changed it and then came the

surprise:

The change consumed about 25% of ink from all the eight carts, meaning that ink

equvivalent to two carts of ink was consumed. I wonder whats the point of

changing one ink cart, as you might as well change them all. Having low ink

level in some carts, means that after the change, it's going to be very soon to

change them as well, and other more full carts empties again to the level, where

they must be changed etc...

 

Have others noticed this kind of performance? I hadn't used glossy paper at all,

so no photo black and glop were used but now they are down to 75%.

 

Outrageous performance.

 

-matti

thanks guys. Contrast adjustment did the trick. I was too blind of my own mistakes. Now the image look much more natural, so I have confidence that my next project may work.

-matti

I'm trying to merge two different photos. One is a person standing in

light clothing and another is a winter image. I've masked the person

as well as I can, added perspective shadow, flipped the person to get

the direction of shadow in his chest right and blurred the background

a bit. Still the result image looks unnatural. Converting to grayscale

helped a bit but still the photo looks like cut and paste. This was

only a test, so I shot the person with iso800 and denoised heavily in

neatimage, so it looks little plastic. But this aside, how to create

natural looking images using masks and layers?

thanks

-matti

Hi, I have HP 9800, and done mainly b&w prints. The print qualit is the same as hp 8750's because of the no. 100 printhead. The quality is great, but the price of the print is astronomical. I've been able to print 5-6 super-B sized prints with one cart. Refilling was cheap, but the b&w prints turned to have a strong magenta cast in just few months. But then I tried to print with the black cart only, and mostly the prints have been great. There may not be enough punch in the prints compared to the glossy grayscale prints, though. As the black cart is pigment based ink, it's durable also on other papers then prem. plus. I've used epson watercolor radiant and the texture of this paper hides some of the visible dots there always is with bo-printing.

 

great printer, the larger volume no. 102 cart that can be used with hp 8750 should also be usable in this printer.

 

regards, -matti

Hi all. I'm using ufraw under linux to convert raw-images form KM

Dimage A200 to 16-bit tiffs and then edit them with Picture Window

Pro. The problem I'm having is that in e.g. macro images, where the

background is blurred, the gradation between colors is not smooth. In

color images this doesn't mean much, but when I convert the image to

B&W, the different colored dots gets more visible and the gradation

looks bad. I've tried PWP's speck removal, but that doesn't help much.

The ufraw is based on dcraw, and I tried also dcraw and get the same

phenomena. Using Dimage viewer to convert the images gives smooth

images but it's so slooow. Is there anything to be done?

 

Thanks -matti<div></div>

Thanks for replies. The banding is very faint on Epson HWM, can't see it with my bare eyes. It's more like dithering problem, consisting of very thin stripes of darker ink on lighter ink. Strange is that it's only happening on an inch wide area across almost the center of A3 paper. On Super-B paper it's in different position. I don't think it's paper feed problem, more like dithering problem. But annoying, because I've printed 29 prints for my show in January and almost all prints has this banding. That's another thing, if people see this or do they care, but lots of ink and paper ready to be trashed, if they do :-(

Hi all. I'm getting frustrated with HP DJ 9800. I'm printing B&W with

the no. 100 cart, and getting slight horizontal banding, ie not in the

direction of the cart, so it's not clogged jets. At first I thought

the banding vanishes when the print is thorougly dry but inspecting

the prints with my reading glasses on, it shows banding. The banding

diminishes but doesn't disappear completely. This with swellable

polymer papers. I've used HP Premium plus photo and proofing glossy

and Ilford galerie classic glossy papers and it can be seen on both.

The banding is not all over the image, but quite narrow stripe in the

lower part of the print. I think it's not a driver issue, because I

get banding printing with windows driver and hpijs driver in linux.

Anybody noticed this with either HP 9800 or HP 8750? It's not the

cart, because I've changed the carts many times.

TIA

-matti

You could try the panorama tools. You can download it from http://www.vierpi.de It's bit tricky to use, but can do amazing things.

 

-matti

I got myself finally a better A3+ printer. My choice was HP DJ 9800,

because I mainly print B&W and as this printer uses the same cart as

HP 8750, it was an easy decision. I don't need memory card reader or

lcd, so I can use the money for papers and inks. This printer is a ink

hog. I printed one A4 and 3 super-b sized prints, and the cart showed

6% left.

As I've earlier ordered Inktec refill kit for HP 7660, I refilled the

no. 100 cart with this ink, and it works. The prints are as great as

with the original ink. Refilling the cart revealed, that it's more

than true you throw ink away when changing carts. I could fill only 1

ml of ink in black and light gray positions. The dark gray took 3 ml

of ink, so more than 2 ml is discarded.

 

The B&W quality is equal to that of my HP 7660, which means it's not

bad at all. Color I have not tried, I don't even have the photo cart,

with the printer comes black and tri-color cart only, others must be

purchased separately.

 

Great printer, but under Linux where I'm running it, hplip-software

doesn't work 100%. The margins in A3 prints are off, also the printer

takes paper and is starting to print, when some service station stall

error lights are blinked, and the printer must be resetted. But

setting manual feed option and pressing just the resume button solves

this. The paper is taken correctly and image is printed.

 

Printing a super-b print takes about 10 mins, so the printer isn't the

fastest one, but I have time to wait. In windows driver, which I

glimpsed, I couldn't find how to turn the color management off. Adobe

RGB and sRGB can be used. Also I'm going to try the windows driver fro

printing grayscale images using only black ink. There seems to be an

option for this. I really liked the BO prints from my epson c64.

 

As there's good with this printer, the ink consumption is it's weak

point, and as the carts cost way too much, my only option is to fill

them myself. It's not difficult at all.

 

BTW. The HP 7660 prints I placed outdoors more than two weeks ago,

show really bad color shift on Epson HWM. The part that was not coated

with Gold acrylic varnish, shifted in one day in bright sunlight to

reddish-brown color. The varnished part starts to show degrading now.

The othe print, that was printed on Ilford galerie classic is still

going strong.

 

best

 

Matti

Congrats. Gives me hope, and is one count for epson in my record. I'm really unaware if I'll get an Epson 1160 for BW-work or an HP DJ 9800.

I remember when I bought my first Epson, Photo 810. It suffered from constant clogs, until I moved it from the shelf over the monitor to a cooler place. The it only clogged after a week of inactivity. I tried windex, which occasionally helped to unclog, but more severe clogs made me remove the head and force hot water with pressure directly to the head. Then, tired of wasting Epson ink just for cleaning process, I tried some universal ink with the consequence, that cyan died a sudden death. No matter how I tried to unclog the head, cyan remained dead. All other colors worked just fine. Then I made an autopsy to the head, and there's a small foam-type filter beneath the spikes that take ink. The filter was completely blocked. I had to push a needle thru it to open it. Then water went thru the head, but there was no way to re-assemble the head. I tried glueing, but there were leaks, so the epson went to the bin, and I bought a new epson that clogged, and another, and another...

No I haven't. I've read about it, but I think it should need to be order ed abroad. Livick anyway (www.livick.com) recommends Golden. And if the prints last longer, it's not so big a job to spray and varnish the prints for sale. The spray I used has the same property of darkening the blacks, the varnish lightens the whole image a bit, so the net result may be the same.

hi all,

I made a test of spraying two B&W prints from my HP 7660 with Winsor &

Newton artist's fixative. It really made the prints waterproof. Then I

varnished the prints with Golden's Acrylic Varnish. As I diluted the

varnish with water, when coating the prints, no signs of smearing or

other defects showed.

My prints were printed on Ilford Galerie Classic Pearl Paper and Epson

Heavyweight Matte papers. The coating on Ilford with varnish isn't

very good, but on HWM it can't be seen, except that the print gets

little lighter. I used matte varnish, so this could explain the uneven

surface on Ilford. Anyway spraying the prints with fixative really

works, and now I'm going to place the prints outside in direct

sunlight and see, how they'll resist UV, as both the fixative and the

varnish contain UV-absorbents. If the HWM does as good as the Ilford

paper, it may be possible to use fine art watercolour papers as well,

when coated with UVLS varnish.

 

best

-matti

hi all,

I just filled my HP's no. 59 cartridge with InkTec's ink, and get good nozzles as well as good looking prints. They say it'll last as long as HP's own inks. The set with 3x25ml bottles was ?12+postage from England to Finland. If I can fill say 7 to 8 times a cart, this really pays itself fast. I also tried a hack of refilling after hacksawing and washing no.78 cart, with IncTec's inks, but gort only dark gray to work.

 

I was almost ready to buy an Epson 1160 for B&W work, when this morning on The DigitalBWthePrint-list people complained about their Epsons and bad clogging problems, so I'm leaning towards HP Deskjet 9800, which uses the same inks as HP 8750 except blue ink. But as I'm more interested in B&W, and the both uses the Vivera inks and no. 100 cart, I'm thinking of HP 9800, as the price is also 200 ? lower than 8750. And I don't need card readers or displays in the printer. But I haven't found any reviews of 9800, would be nice to read what people who actually have used it, say.