sergei_antonov

<p>If you are shooting from a tripod fastest film will be <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/santonov/93036683/in/set-1163745">Fuji Acros</a>, then TMX. Reason is that reciprocity failure correction will quickly add up exposure for other films.<br>

I like <a href=" @1600 in HC110</a>, in Diafine it is more like 1250.</p>

<p>--Sergei</p>

<p>Mark, new style eyecup doesn't fit to old prism finder. I tried to glue my, but eventually it is getting loose.</p>

<p>--Sergei</p>

<p>I would say shelf time could be close to 12 months if you careful enough. I store Xtol in 500ml brown glass chemical bottles in cool dark place. All bottles are filled to the top and corked. Just finished the last one and refillled new batch. If you are using plastic bottles of larger volume make sure you test your stuff every time before processing -- which for me is more annoying than spending time once to find all bottles for the 5 liter batch. Opposite to common opinion I find that Xtol is nice and reliable developer, if you store it right. Storing it in 5 liter bottle would be bad idea, unless you will use it in one-two months.</p>

<p>--Sergei</p>

<p>Mamiya 6 is 6x6 camera, optics is great, but too slow for quickly moving objects (like runaway bride...). And for some common issues there is no repair anymore. If you don't like to present square format shots in your wedding portfolio, you will crop, and Mamiya will give you the same result as 645 format camera, which could have faster lenses, more choices and be as easy to handle. Or consider Mamiya 7 -- you will get 6x7 here, complete service still available and best lenses.</p>

<p>--Sergei</p>

<p>Do you mean Neopan Acros? I like Perceptol the best for Acros. I am rating the film as ISO 64 and processing it in Perceptol 1+3 13 min @20C. It worked fine in Jobo. I didn't do this for 35mm, only for 120 and 4x5, I am not using 35mm these days. This process gives me <a href=" balanced negatives</a> with good tonality that are pleasure to scan.<br>

HP5 is <a href=" very good</a> in Perceptol: I am rating it @200 and process in Perceptol 1:2.<br>

At the same time, if you are comfortable with Xtol, why change the developer? Xtol works OK in rotary processor, it gives a bit denser negatives than Perceptol, but you could adjust it by changing film rating and development time.</p>

<p>Good luck,<br>

Sergei</p>

<p>I like Tri-X @1600 in HC110 1:100 (from syrup) stand development. After initial agitation I keep it 14min starting at 29C. In my experience it has better tonality than Diafine and I think it gives the best overall results at 1600 compared to other push processing. <a href=" and <a href=" are samples and some technical details in the tags.<br>

Delta 3200 in medium format in pretty nice, very good tones and shadow details, but it is a bit flat.<br>

--Sergei</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I like HC110 1:100 (from the concentrate) stand development for Tri-X @1600. In my opinion it gives better contrast and tonality than Diafine. See example below. It was 14min stand development @29C. Film is 120 format. Light in this place is very soft.<br>

--Sergei<br>

<a title="Blowers by sergeant, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3560/3347966941_5bc0c70767.jpg" alt="Blowers" width="392" height="500" /></a></p>

<p>You should also switch release on the lens to "mirror up" mode. I don't have K/L lens, but on other lenses this switch has two positions, one of them is "Mirror Up".<br>

On my Pro-S mirror is lowered only when I cock the shutter after the shot.<br>

You know that to close shutter in T mode you will need to turn shutter speed ring a bit to the 1 sec? One of Mamiya quirks...<br>

You need only one cable for Mirror-Up mode, screw it into the socked on the lens. Use your finger to press the button on the body.</p>

<p>--Sergei</p>

 

<p>Hi Marvin,</p>

<p>You will need universal bellows only if you plan to use 90mm and shorter lens, regular bellows are a bit stiff with this lens and will limit movements. I did same as you plan to do: ordered camera, then was waiting for 6 months, meanwhile I purchased all paraphernalia and lenses. Badger sells decent new generic lensboards for about $30, I would not bother with used lensboards. You will need Technika style lensboard, there is number of cameras that use this format, like Wista.<br>

Till August you could hunt EBay for lenses you want. Or you could by it from KEH, but they have somewhat limited selection. I got 90mm Nikkor SW, 240mm Fujinon A and 150mm Schneider APO Symmar, later I hunted down 135mm Rodenstock Sironar S, and indeed, this length is quite useful, I will probably swap 150mm to 180mm, but it is matter of personal preference. If you are not sure about full range of lenses, just get decent 150mm and wait till you start using the camera, may be you could rent other lenses to get an idea. I an pretty happy with used lenses, there is some risk involved when you buy it from EBay, but price difference validated this for me.<br>

If you ever plan to use long lenses, order extension for your camera, otherwise it is only 360mm, i.e. you could use about 300mm max. It may take a long wait if you will order an extension later. They also offer folding viewer, which I would like to order too. If you plan to hike with this camera, I recommend to use regular daypack (Kelty Redwing 3100) and cases from Renaissance PhotoTech, it is much more practical than regular photo backpack. Otherwise camera, 10-12 holders and 3-4 lenses nicely fit into any MF camera bag. I am using standard film holders. You also have to get spotmeter and loupe. It is much better to have cable release attached to each lens, LF setup takes pretty long, don't make it longer.<br>

Good luck, Chamonix is very nice camera.<br>

--Sergei</p>

<p>I wonder what exactly is your problem... What does it mean "to upload drivers"? I used this scanner in all flavors of Vista (32 and 64 bits) and currently it works on Win7 RC (both 64 and 32 bits) without any problems. There were at least 5-6 re-installations of drivers in total. I am using it with SilverFast (both 64 and 32 bits), which you should have in the package. This is quite good scanner for MF and 4x5. I have drum scanner too, and could tell that Epson is quite decent when compared to it, especially for negatives.<br>

--Sergei</p>

 

<p>Nathan, in worst case you could be badly disappointed -- your camera could be not repairable. It has pretty fragile protrusions in the casting that are used as rails for the lens retraction. If this protrusion is broken or bent, lens will not click and stop in lower ur upper position, or will not retract at all. I have a body with this defect -- it is only good for parts now. In my opinion, the only place where you could fix this is Mamiya repair center. Unfortunately, casting is one of two spare parts that they don't have anymore in US (another one is famous winding assembly). Other owners reported that they had more luck with Mamiya UK or other European centers.<br>

You could try to find someone locally to open camera and take a look, what is broken or bent. If there is a chance to fix it, but fix require disassembling, send it to Mamiya, local people normally don't have expensive equipment to adjust the camera after complicated repair. You may want to do it any way, it will cost you just shipping, in Mamiya they do not charge money for the inspection, and you could trust them. This is what I did.<br>

If you have this defect, the only way to fix it in US is to find another body for parts and take it from there. Any local repairman or Mamiya shop will do it free of charge, if you leave them leftover parts. Unfortunately, big chance that buying new working body probably will be less expensive. I liked Mamiya 6 a lot, but replaced it by Mamiya 7 -- it is less risky investment, and optics is better, in my opinion.</p>

<p>Good luck,<br>

Sergei</p>

 

<p>Mamiya 7 is not suitable for graduated ND filters. No matter what this company or their reviewers will tell you. Did you use this kind of filters in any "see through" camera? They probably expect that you will carry SLR with you to calibrate this system.</p>

<p>Hi, Walt!<br>

You could rent time in Photographic Center Northwest, they have this scanner. I don't know how optimistic they will be about letting you to do wet mount... Check this out -- <a href="http://www.pcnw.org/facilities/digital.php">http://www.pcnw.org/facilities/digital.php</a>. You have to pay year membership, then rent. I am using this place for wide format printing.<br>

I am using my scanner with 4x5 with success, but I am too lazy to do wet mounting. Epson's mounting holder needs a bit of work to be more useful, there is third party solution, but in my opinion it is way overpriced piece of plastic.<br>

--Sergei</p>

<p>With spot meter attachment $84 seems like a good deal. Make sure that attachment has 1 degree mode, I am not sure it is the case for Luna Pro. If it is 15 degrees only, your "spot" will be pretty large, and it measures at 30 degrees without any attachment. In my opinion, main value of this meter is its sensitivity. You could measure in the darkroom with it. I am using it for low light measurements, when other meters cannot get any reading. This meter has an adjustment screw on the back, you could visit any decent photo repair shop to fine tune it.<br>

Sergei</p>

<p>If you want to move forward from 135 format, 645 is half way, no matter of camera. I would recommend to look for 6x7 or 6x9. In 6x7 format you could find number of choices, and frame size will blow 645 away. Unless you want to keep weight of your gadgets to the minimum, and still want to have SLR, in my opinion there is no sense to enter MF with 645.<br>

--Sergei</p>

 

<p>I did a search on my stream in Flickr, there is number of images scanned from Acros in all kind of developers. Most have some technical details See it result of search <a href="

--Sergei</p>

<p>Alberto, I processed Acros in Rodinal 1:50 and 1:100 semi-stand, in Xtol, but the best for scanning, in my opinion is processing in diluted Perceptol. I rate Acros @64 and process it in Perceptol 1+3 for 13min @20C. Result is very smooth and soft negative, no highlights are blocked, scans perfectly. I did this for 120 format. See some results <a href=" and around -- this was shot in bright afternoon sun. This dilution works nicely with TMax-100 too. Rodinal in MF gives more contrast, but still quite easy to scan. I haven't use Acros in 35mm, some people think Rodinal will produce more visible grain with this format. Acros generally is good for scanning, unless you overdevelop it.<br>

--Sergei</p>

I am back with bad news. It was certainly failure of developer, which is unfortunate. It blackens film in snip test, but keep

failing when used for real processing. So far it worked only with Foma 200, I used 1:1:100 7min @22C in Jobo it produced

at least some result, all other films went to garbage: HP5, Efke 100, TMAX400. I also found number of reports on APUG

forums where people experienced the same kind of failures. So I think it doesn't worth my time and money to continue with

this product -- it is not reliable. I don't know if it is issues with QC in PhotoFormulary, or bad batch that I got, but now I am

sure that it is not my mistake, I use number of other developers in the same conditions without any troubles.

 

--Sergei

Besides of light meter, how do you know how filter effects your picture? It is pretty hard to see in SLR, and is totally guess in rangefinder. With this guess you could guess exposure too. If you have an idea how filter will effect, you could take a measurement without filter, then switch to manual mode and apply this with filter. Mamiya 7 light meter is quite approximate any way.

I mixed concentrates 1:1:100, as described in the instruction. Should I use more concentrate(s)? Then instruction is incorrect. Sure, I will try this film snip before I call to vendor.

 

Thanks,

Sergei

Hello, everyone!

 

I just got kit with two bottles of Pyrocat-MC (in glycol) from digitaltruth.com. I tried it last evening on HP5, using

recommented times in Jobo. Film sheets came out blank. OK, I decided that it could be my mistake, it may be not exposed,

etc. Today I tried it again on TMY using recommended time (9 min @70F) in Jobo. Film came out with traces of image,

almost blank, but it is visible that it was exposed. I used different lenses, it cannot be that all my shutters suddenly stopped to

work.

Developer has very dark lavender kind of color after processing. I did 2 min prewash, so it is not a film. I used chemicals

immediately after preparing the solution, and it had light yellowish color.

Is it possible that I got outdated or bad developer from the vendor? Did anyone experience this kind of failure?

 

Thanks,

Sergei

Michael,

 

I have a body (Mamya 6 MF) where another unavalable part is broken (body casting -- protrusion that fixes the lens in upper/lower position was broken). This body also traveled to Mamyia shop and they replied that body overall is fine except for this protrusion issue. They don't have only two parts for Mamiya 6 : winding assembly and this casting. They were ready to take another body, strip it down and take part from there. I hunted a while on eBay for this one (they usually go for $250-$280), but got another working body sooner.

If winding assembly replacement doesn't require optical system adjustment, you could try some local repairman (we have one guy that does generic fixes like this in Seattle area), but you still need this part.

I don't like to mess with eBay selling this body, if you are interested to buy it from me, send me direct e-mail and we will discuss price etc. Body is located in Seattle. Otherwise watch auctions -- shutterblade seller puts bodies for parts couple times during the year, you may have better luck than I did.

 

 

--Sergei

Grady,

 

Mamya 7 with 65mm lens and TMY-2 would be very good setup for B&W photography. In my opinion there is something

magical in this camera lenses when used in B&W photography. But lenses are slow, DOF is shallow, so 400 ISO film is

what would be useful, tripod is not what this camera was designed for... You will not get 100% satisfaction with Mamiya 7, it

has its own shortcomings -- no macro, no head and shoulder portraits, parallax, etc... but it is great where it is applicable.

See an example

 

<a href=" title="Rock shapes on Botanical beach by sergeant, on

Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3213/2853616709_3faabb44e8.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="Rock

shapes on Botanical beach" /></a>

 

 

I have Mamya 7 with 65, 43 and 150mm lenses, and 65mm is what I am using 80% of time as my normal lens. 43mm is

fantastic lens, some people carry is all the time on camera, but it is too wide for general use, unless you try to develop your

style from this lens. 150mm is a bit of compromize -- it is sharpest of all my lenses, but kind of hard to focus, compared to

65mm.

 

I found that high constrast of Mamiya 7 optics, size of negative and TMY-2 are a nice combination. You may or may not like

Velvia or other color film with that. I like Portra 400NC and Fuji 400H. And I do like Velvia when it does job that no other tool

could produce.

 

Good luck,

 

Sergei

Here is what you could do to check your setup:

 

- Set your camera on tripod.

- Find piece of ground glass that could fit inside of your camera, and that you could place inside of camera instead of film. I used the glass from my Mamiya rb67. You could open shutter permanently using locking remote release cable when you set shutter speed on B. Grounded surface of the glass should take exactly the same position as film.

- Focus your lens using 4x - 8x loupe and looking to the ground glass image.

- Check if it is in focus in the viewfinder.

- Focus in the rangefined, and look to the ground glass image. Measure distance to you focus with the tape, if it is close focus.

- Repeat the same with your 80mm lens.

 

This way you will get a good idea, what is going on when you focus looking into your viewfinder. After that you could decide, what and how should be adjusted. My 150mm lens is also sometimes soft on close distances, it is harder to focus -- image is pretty small.

 

Good luck, Sergei

I second Ted: get rid of it. I still have 2/3 of long 35mm roll, no wish to deal with it any more. I tried Rodinal, Xtol, TD3 -- in proper (documented) dilutions and times, all failed. The only thing that produced usable negatives for me was Kodak developer Technidol, you still could find it in some places. It is expensive, finicky film that require a lot of learning.

Even if you will get good negative, how many roll do you have? Or you just do it to tell your grandchildren that you did it? Sure, they will be impressed...

 

Good luck,

--Sergei