ben_hutcherson

As said, the 28mm has been AI converted. AFAIK, you can't convert an AI lens to an AI-s. The difference between the two is that stop down lever on the back of the lens is linear-or moving it a certain amount always results in the same change in aperture-on AI-s lenses. If you play with an AI lens or AI-converted one next to an AI-s lens, and watch the movement of the aperture lever as you turn the ring(off the camera) you can see this. Bodies that require non-AI lenses use the "bunny ears" to couple the meter to the lens. The reason for this is interesting, at least to me. The "bunny ears" are always located at the f/5.6 position. This means that the camera/meter always "knows" what aperture is set, but since TTL meters normally meter at full aperture, the camera needs to know what the maximum aperture actually is. For a lot of non-AI cameras(Nikon F FTn, Nikormat FTN, FT2, EL, Nikon F2 Photomic, F2S, F2SB) there's a mechanism that sometimes gets called "semi-auto indexing", where you set the maximum aperture by turning the aperture ring to maximum aperture after mounting. On some earlier bodies, namely the Nikkormat FT and the Nikon F T and Tn, you have to set the maximum aperture(you actually do it on the ASA dial-basically you line up the mark for the maximum aperture set with the film speed you're using). The non-TTL meters, like the original F Photomic and the F clip-on selenium meters, don't need to have the maximum aperture set since they don't actually care what it is. The AI system is a bit of a different philosophy-it uses a "notch" in the aperture ring that interacts with a tab around the lens mount(or hanging down from the metering head). This only communicates whether the lens is set to wide open, or if not wide open how far down from maximum aperture it's set. The 28mm should work fine on the FT3. It should also allow aperture priority and manual on your F-801. The N2000 gets interesting. When Nikon started making AI lenses, they added a lug to the back of the lens that communicates the maximum aperture. I've never seen an AI converted lens, from Nikon or anyone else, that had this maximum aperture lug added. There are only a handful of cameras that even can "read" this lug, but the N2000 is one of those cameras. I'm working on memory rather than loading batteries in my N2000(even though it's sitting a few feet behind me) but the main thing you will lose on it with this lens is full program. Aperture priority and manual should work fine.

I'm just curious if anyone had ever seen or encountered one of these. I bought a Nikon F lot not too terribly long ago with actually an incredibly well documented history of its first/original owner, who had lived in Germany for a number of years. The camera itself is worthy of a post(it's a lovely low 64 million block black F with a clean eye level prism) and lots of documentation. The person who sold it to me had done quite a bit of research on the history of it. In any case, in this kit was an F-mount Steinheil Munchen lens. Most references you find to this maker list them making Exakta lenses, and I can find very little information on any F mount lenses by them. I've used the lens a bit-admittedly on my Df and not on film-and it's really a lovely lens. I'd dare say it's a bit sharper at comparable apertures to Nikon's 105mm f/2.5 of the same vintage, but also has its own rendering. As I said, I'm looking for information or just general comments on the lens, but am also just sort of showing it off too...

I'm not familiar with this work flow, but this reads like a digital darkroom question for me. I think it's asking about "developing" the "scans"(photos of negatives taken with a DSLR) or presumably doing the color inversion/correction with a particular piece of software.

Joe, I know you often speak ill of old studio flash equipment-what do you prefer as its alternative? And for full disclosure, I am not giving up my Normans any time soon. Yes the power settings are weird, but after 5 years of owning and using them quite a bit, I know how to work around them and get almost always get the result I want the first time, and I love the quality of light. A little more recently I've been playing with Lumedynes, which look like they were put together in someone's garage(probably because they were, or at least some of the oldest stuff) and the whole system is clunky. I love how small the light heads are, though, especially for the amount of power they can throw, and also simplicity and built-in a-garage design means I can often repair it myself..

The post was directed at one specific person, and has quite a few specific questions in it combined with my own experience and data. I'm sorry that you find it cumbersome to read, but the questions I'm asking to another user relate to both the age of their experience and some technical minutia about how certain products work. I'm sorry if you don't seem to understand these questions.

I think one other part of the GPU equation comes down to this 1. Adobe likely has a larger percent of Mac users among their user base than the general public, just given the historic stronghold of Macs in creative fields and the like. This means that making sure their software is at its best on Macs. I think anyone who has used half-baked attempts to port PC software to macOS from some other makers can likely agree that, on the whole, Adobe does a really good job. \ 2. When you're catering to a Mac audience, your possible hardware configurations are pretty limited. For a long time, you only needed to worry about Intel CPUs, and at that nothing below the "Core" series CPUs. For GPUs, since about 2013 you're really only had to worry about AMD and Intel, although there were a few nVidia models still under support for a while. I'm not even sure if Adobe ever bothered to do much if any hardware accel on Intel GPUs, so really that limits it to AMD. Of course 2020 added a new CPU and GPU architecture, and I don't pretend to know software engineering but I suspect that the various Apple Silicon models are similar enough to not cause too much of a programming headache. Even within AMD, you have a pretty short list of supported GPUs. The only small wrench in the works are the old Mac Pros, especially when Apple gave them a lifeline by officially supporting aftermarket CPU upgrades. Past 2020 or so, a few years after nVidia discontinued the web drivers that allowed their GPUs to be used in 10.13 and earlier and that OS rolled off support, you really did have a very short list of possible GPUs. That certainly makes compatibility easy, and I imagine the onyl sort of niche case where someone really runs into a GPU wall is if they're still running a 2010/2012 Mac Pro with a current OS and have a GPU that's way off the rails from anything Apple ever imagined. That certainly makes things a lot easier compared to the "wild west" of possible CPU and GPU combinations in Windows. It doesn't help that Windows 10 runs on a whole, whole lot of computers that may getting well on in age by now, where Apple does pretty regularly cut off older systems from new OS updates.

Gary, I know this is an older post, but just curious have you tested Tenergy batteries recently? I have used bunches of them in both NiCd and NiMH in AA, Sub-C, and 4/5 Sub-C. I typically go with their standard capacity batteries. Right now I have quite literally over 100 each Ni-Cd AA 1000mAH, NiMH AA 2000mAH and 4/5SC NiMH 2000mAH. I also have several(in the dozens) 4/5SC NiCd 1300mAH, NiCd SC 2200mAH, and NiMH SC 4200mAH. I spot check cell lots any time I get them with 1 or 2 cells. My spot check is charging at c/10 for 14 hours while monitoring voltage with a sensitive bench multimeter. I will terminate charge if I see the full charge drop signature, although it's subtle especially on NiMH at that charge rate on a single cell. Plus, NiMH will generally tolerate C/10 without harm for several hours past full charge, and NiCd could probably go 72 hours without harm. I follow that by discharge at c/10 to 1.05V, where almost without fail I will get rated capacity +/-5% on the full charge(although to be honest discharge termination voltage doesn't matter a ton as long as you don't go too low-once you fall into the "toe" of the discharge curve or below about 1.1-1.15V depending on load there's not any useable capacity remaining). After initial charge I do a couple charges at C/5. Since I know they are discharged starting, I set a timer for 5 hours, watch for the full charge voltage drop(which is a bit more pronounced at higher charge rates) and monitor temperature. Rarely will they not test at 5-10% over rated capacity at this point. When I build packs, I bulk sort by internal resistance to get matched cells, then do the same conditioning as above before charging where they'll finally be installed(i.e. an 8 AA cell pack for a Quantum Turbo SC goes in a Turbo SC, and preferably in the one where it will end up). I generally do both C/5 and C/2 discharges after doing this and check "real world" performance(make sure they give at least the number of flashes that Quantum says they will-I never get less!). Right now I have 5 packs sitting on my bench that are 8 cell 4/5SC NiMH meant for the Quantum Turbo Z. Even though this was originally a Ni-Cd pack, I've monitored charging on it and I'm satisfied that it can safely charge NiMH correctly. The only exception I've had was one box of 4/5SC Ni-Cds that tested out at ~1100(rated 1300) no matter how much "massaging" I did. Other boxes I bought at the same time were fine. I've only done one Lumedyne pack, but I have about a half dozen small NiCd packs, one medium NiCd, and a Minicycler(which uses the same 9 Sub-Cs as the other packs). I know Lumedyne advertises that they will upgrade NiCd to NiMH-I'd think the ones with thermal termination could handle it but I don't know. I'm tempted to try one... Granted I don't know how much real use I have for Lumedynes. For fast flash recycle, I prefer the size if the Turbo SC or the capacity/speed of the 2x2 and Turbo 3. The Megacycler does recycle faster than any Quantum product I'm aware of, but it's also bigger, bulkier, and annoyingly loud. I have a few Lumedyne heads and power packs for them, and I appreciate both the modularity and how much more powerful they can be than a some other portable options, but for my use I find the Q flash T series better. I know they are a lot less powerful, but I like the 1/3 stop manual adjustment and all the nice wireless controllable TTL features you get with the T5Dr and the right other bits and pieces.

Maybe I'm just sloppy or get tired quickly, but I've never printed enough in one session to exhaust the tray of Dektol I mix at the beginning of the session. It's the only print developer I've ever used, and I mostly print on Ilford multigrade(occasionally Kodak Azo, but my use case is limited even though I have a ton of it).

Well, call me stupid, stubborn, whatever but a Leafscan 35 is on its way to me. I have Vuescan in 10.4.11 on a dual 1ghz Quicksilver that has the Apple supplied Adaptec 2930CU card. I've run several scanners off those cards, including the Coolscan II and III and an ancient Sprintscan 35, so it should be fine. I just wish I could track down the Leaf software, although I haven't dug that hard yet. The computer does dual boot OS X and OS 9-or actually triple boots 10.4, 10.5, and OS 9(10.5 deprecated a LOT of SCSI drivers, including, frustratingly, the 2030CU which, again, Apple supplied as BTO in computers that can officially run 10.5), so can easily run it in OS 9 if that if it plays better.

Just as an anecdote- I don't run Adobe products on my one M1 system(first generation M1 pro) because I find it woefully inadequate for the task. When I bought it, everyone told me 8gb was fine, It's not, at least if you want to multitask while running Lightroom. I'm currently eying a 16" to replace it-undecided as to if I'll do refurb M1, M2, or go with a current M3, but in any case I'm eying the base Max config(which is 32gb RAM/1tb) and have eyed a few M1 Max 64gb models. My Lightroom/Photoshop machines now are a 2019 5K iMac and a 2015 15" Retina MBP. I have a couple of eGPU enclosures with Radeon RX580 cards in them. One stays on my iMac, and it makes a noticeable difference in how Lightroom runs as long as, of course, I enable eGPU. With that said, It's not night and day-as an example running AI noise reduction on a 40mp X-T5 file or 45mp D850 file takes about a minute on the internal RX 570, and 30-45 seconds on the RX580. The big benefit to me to running it on the eGPU is to keep heat out of the main case. The 2015 Retina doesn't officially support eGPUs, but it's easy enough to get one working. My 2015 does not have aa dGPU, and the Iris Pro is definitely showing its age with some of the GPU heavy stuff. AI Noise reduction takes 10-15 minutes for similar files as above, and that includes a couple of minutes just to render the preview(which is 10 seconds or so on my iMac. Adding in the eGPU gets me a preview in ~20 seconds, and 1-2 minutes to actually run it. That's slower than the iMac, but still workable especially as I don't do it on every file. I picked up a "Trashcan"-Mac Pro 6,1-not too long ago, but haven't really played with it. It has decent specs for RAM and storage, and I have a 12 core CPU sitting here waiting for me to install. I'm expecting it may be pokey as it has the base D300 GPU, which was already a bit dated in 2013, but opted for that since the D500 and D700s, which I could have just as easily bought(I bought at a retail electronics retailer, and they had 14 of them in varying configs out, from absolute base to top of the line) have been known to have issues. Thermal management isn't the best in those computers-in a rare interview someone from Apple admitted as such shortly before the 7,1 was announced. I know that's a bit of rambling, but it's all to say that the GPU seems to just work for me on my Macs regardless of what I throw at it. Even though I had issues with Lightroom on my M1 if I had say a browser in the background, it still was fine for GPU accelerated functions. Admittedly the last time I tried it was before the Ai NR update dropped. BTW, too, it's not a lack of use of the computer in general-I'm typing this post from it now and it's my main computer 80% of the time(the iMac the remainder at home, the 2015 Retina usually stays at work semi-permanently docked to an old Thunderbolt display). I just don't have any Adobe products activated on it.

I think Nikon really missed the boat too by not offering a split image at least as an option on the Df. It's such a great camera in so many ways, and falls so short in others. Also, I have read on here-maybe from you!-that the digital rangefinder has two "levels" of precision, and it is less precise with a non-CPU lens mounted. That's really a shame, as a digital rangefinder, especially one that can be moved around, has the potential to give much better focus than a split image even if it's not as "satisfying" to use(or as informative as the single dot version in the lower end bodies is). Assuming that is the case, too, I never was clear on whether the lower-precision mode applies to non-CPU lenses or to manual focus lenses. I've tried to test it with the 45mm AI-P, but a(relatively) slow normal lens is not one that will show an issue. Considering that Nikon has some recent high end manual focus optics, like the various PC-E lenses, I'd assume CPU manual focus lenses do use the higher precision electronic rangefinder, but there again don't know for sure. Are Dandelion chips still a thing? I know they were a hot topic back before I was a Nikon user and had no real concept of what they were other than seeing the name tossed around.

Can you give a general idea of where you are located?

I've done wet mounting before on my V700(I used 1-Octanol and plastic sheets held down with polyimide tape on the Epson glass tray) and was able to get some beautiful results, but hard as I tried I never managed to get one completely bubble free. I think it made such a big difference on my V700 partially because film flatness with MF in particular is such an issue, even with the BetterScanning holder. I was able to do nearly as good by using the glass tray dry and laying the(heavy) piece of AN glass from my BetterScanning holder on top of it. Scanning is one of those things I have a love-hate relationship with. For my part, the Coolscan V does great. I wish I had a glass carrier for my 8000, but the last time I looked those sold for nearly as much as I paid for the scanner!(which wasn't cheap-I think I paid around $1K in 2018 or so-I did get 35mm strip, medium format strip, and 35mm mounted slide carriers with it but have only ever scanned MF since the V is so much more convenient for 35mm. I finally hit on a workable combination of removing the top rails from the MF holder and laying the AN glass from my BetterScanning Epson holder on top, but the purpose made glass carrier I know would be better. Really, I don't need another scanner. After moving a few hundred miles 3 years ago, my V700 is still one of the things I moved to my parents house for storage and have yet to retrieve. There have been a few times I could have used it, but not that often. Still, though, I would love one of these old high end scanners. I'm kind of hoping this Leaf 45 local to me turns up still available-it's cheap and I do have Besseler carriers to use in it(which I understand it takes).

That’s also Ken Rockwell… I don’t get too caught up on distortion for digital or for scanned film, especially not the easy to correct barrel or pincushion distortion that most simple primes show. Things like softness, poor field flatness, and veiling flare are a lot more difficult to recover. I don’t know how the 35mm f/2.8 compares as I’ve never owned one-just the PC, a few f/2s(AI and AF) and now two different gens of f/1.4. I do know that the examples I’ve handled left me less that impressed.

Are you sure you’re not mixing up the 35mm f/2.8 AI/AI-S or Series E with the 35mm f/2.8 PC? The PC does have shift adjustments and optically quite good. It’s also a preset lens, not AI or AI-s, or even Auto-NIKKOR.