richard_f1

I love reading the fights you guys have on this Leica forum.

Maybe you could all relax. Let the Leica people do their thing, let the digital people do their thing.

I think most people generally can accept that some people like digital, some people like film, some people use both (like me) and most people, from each of these categories, have better things to do than diss each other over which medium they prefer.

But do carry on - it's a lot of fun to read!

Hey John,

the other guys are right. You need to do stacks of research if you don't want to waste your cash.

I spent about 6 or 7 months solidly researching what to get. There are plenty of websites to start with (I'm afraid I can't remember any, it was ages ago, but google something like "how to choose a telescope" or try the links the others gave).

I went to a "star party" - a bunch of dudes hanging out in a dark park with their telescopes. Some of them can be a bit know-it-all but there were plenty who were very willing to let me look through their scopes and tell me all about the pros and cons of different versions. I strongly recommend you find a local club and try one of these nights. Take some coffee in a thermos!

After that, I paid my first visit to the telescope shop (there aren't really that many in Australia once you rule out the camera shops/department stores, which you certainly will do 30 seconds after googling the topic!).

Then I checked out a few reviews of the models they had available and talked to the shop owner about my own ideas of what I wanted to do with it.

Ater that I finally ordered one.

Alas, it took so long to arrive that by the time they rang me to say it was ready (literally months later) I had got a job overseas so I couldn't get it.

When I finally go home I will go through all this again and get one.

If I could remember what I chose, I'd tell you, but it was a couple of years ago. It had a motor drive on it but did not have the computer function. Instead, I had a book about how to locate things in the sky.

Anyway I look forward to the day when I live in a place with clear skies. In Beijing you are lucky to see more than 4 or 5 stars on a "clear" night, and they are rare enough!

I hope you have a lot of fun once you decide what to get. Good luck!

Hi Karl,

Take your point and shoot too, especially if it fits in your pocket. You don't want to walk round some places with a giant camera hanging round your neck but you won't want to miss shots while waiting to haul it out of a bag. For one thing you will look like a really obvious tourist which might make it harder for you to get certain images (because the huge SLR can be off-putting to people when you go up to them, though once you start a little conversation they are often quite happy to have their photo taken, which is when you pull out the SLR). For another thing, you might be an easy target for robbery (certain places in North Africa in particular warrant concealing your big expensive camera except for the moments you are actually using it).

I travel quite a bit in third world places and off the beaten track. I have a shoulder bag with my SLR in it and a few lenses. The bag is not obviously a camera bag, but you can fold the top open and quickly grab the SLR.

Then I jam a little point and shoot in my pocket. It's small and quick just means that if I see something cool that I'd like to take a photo of, but for whatever reason I don't want to get the SLR out, I can quickly do it.

The last thing I'd say is that physically-short lenses look a lot smaller and are easier to get out of a bag and back in quickly than really big lenses.

You might want to keep the smaller one attached and only dig out the big one when you really want it.

Have a great time!

In Germany it is how it sounds in Holland. You have to marry before an official of the local government. If you want the religious component that's separate - a church wedding on its own doesn't count as a legal marriage. That was the one and only time I will ever photograph someone's wedding!

In Australia, where I am from, priests/ministers (at least from the main churches) are legally able to be marriage celebrants under the relevant legislation. So you can have a "civil" wedding with a celebrant or a religious one with a priest in a church, without going twice. We actually had a non-religious wedding but the celebrant was the minister from my parents'church. It was on an un-moored ship on Sydney Harbour - different to NZ which I find fascinating (unless my wedding was illegal!)

The other difference from Holland in both Germany and Australia is that this only applies to heterosexual couples. The local government where I am from (the ACT in Australia) recently tried to bring in "civil unions" but it was overturned by the Federal Government.

As for albums - beats me! I made an archival style one for my German friends - fibre-based b/w prints, little corners in a special album. It took me forever to do. We didn't have a photographer at our own wedding - we have heaps of pics from lots of friends which I must get around to putting in an album. Thankfully there weren't nearly 1,000 though.

An interesting thread!

Vinay, dude, take a chill pill!

Mayans are often referred to as "Indians", including at the BBC, that supposed bastion of English usage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/736023.stm

The background is that when Columbus rocked up to Central America, he thought he was in India.

So, he described the people he met there as "Indians".

The terminology has stuck around ever since, at least in English (I don't know about Spanish or French). It is true that in recent times some people prefer to steer away from this terminology, and use "indigenous people" as a general term, or more specifically "first nations" (as in Canada) or "Native Americans" (as in the USA). I'm not sure of any specific term for Central American first nations - probably simply "Mayans" (in this case).

But I think it is a fair bet to say that the Francisco was using a broadly accepted term. And given his obvious understanding of many people's sensitivities about being photographed, I certainly doubt he views the indigenous residents of Guatemala with anything less than full respect.

On top of all that Francisco is right to mention his main point - when you travel anywhere for the first time, it's wise not to randomly jam cameras in people's faces before you get a feel for the place.

The dude just wanted to post his photos and tell us what he found out. PN is packed with threads about people's reactions to being photographed. Maybe we should just say "Thanks man, nice to know, looks like you had a nice holiday".

If you really have a problem with the use of the word "Indian" in that context, I am sure there are ways to raise it without being sarcastic or, worse, a dork.

Anyway, my view, for what it is worth.

Hey everyone, thanks so much!

I live in China so eBay and mail order isn't as easy as it would be if I lived in other places. Many people won't ship here and if they did, there's no guarantee it would arrive. Neither is Internet access to lots of websites as easy as elsewhere - it's pretty hit-and-miss and hard to predict why/when you can reach some sites and not others. As a result my google searches don't always work (not least because getting onto Google is no sure thing itself).

This is why I am doubly grateful for this website which I thankfully can usually reach, and for you very helpful people who offered me good searching ideas and ultimately the exact info I was after.

thanks again to each of you for taking the effort to reply. Greatly appreciated.

Richard

Hello there,

I've just inherited my wife's 505si Super. She's gone digital.

But we no longer have the manual.

The camera has ten custom settings, each of which can be "on" or "off". I know

how to set them, but they are just numbered 1 to 10 so I don't know what they

actually are.

I've looked around here and on Google with no joy.

Does anybody happen to know what the functions are? I gather some might be quite

useful to me, like film leader out/in, spot meter switch options etc.

A big thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light.

I use my long-serving 9000 normally, mostly for b/w. But the 505 is nice and

light and slips into my bag with no fuss. I put slide film in it and just pop a

lens on when I see something that I might like to take a slide of.

Anyhow, thanks in advance!

R

What to do with the photos? Look at them! Show them to friends or family. Put them in an album and fish them out from time to time. Blow them up and hang them in your house.

Just because others are making money from photography, selling prints or doing websites or whatever, doesn't mean you have to.

Of course, it doesn't mean you can't do it too!

But you can just enjoy photography for its own sake.

Have fun man!

If you do it at home you will probably end up saving time and maybe money compared to doing at the uni. $4/hr and $1.75 a roll will add up reasonably quickly to the cost of buying the gear yourself.

I do it in the kitchen underneath the extractor fan thing. Admittedly the kitchen isn't the best place, given that you're using chemicals and it's a food preparation area. But we live in one of those studenty group houses where no-one really uses the kitchen and if they do they'd never dream of eating anything that touched any of the surfaces there! And I am very careful not to spill anything (or clean up thoroughly if I do). It's good to find somewhere with decent ventilation because these chemicals can harm your health or at least give you a fat headache.

You asked about time. It takes me about an hour from putting the roll onto the spool, running the various chemicals through, washing and drying, to cutting up the strip to put it in sleeves.

You can dry your films in the shower or bathroom. There was a thread on here about that recently. I poke a little hole in the film at either end which gives a peg something to grip onto, and then just hang it up from a hook. I run the heat lamp at first but not too long (because overheating can be bad) and I run the extractor fan too.

There are also quite a few threads on here about disposing of the chemicals when you are finished with them.

A good way to get your temperatures right is to put the chemicals in a jug, and then place that jug in a sink of colder or warmer water (depending if you need to heat up or cool down). Slowly but surely the chemicals in the jug will come down or up in temp.

Others may disagree but generally if you get within a degree of where you are supposed to be, you should be ok - certainly for the first few rolls you do while working it all out.

Good luck!

My X700 never let me down. I used it alot on a big trip in Central America and also in the Sahara. No problems.

The MD1 was slightly painful though. The little switch that selects hi or low speed, or single frame, doesn't seem to work any more. Also, when you touch the button, you don't get any lights in the viewfinder.

I "upgraded" to a 9000 ten years ago, bought new lenses etc.

But the x700 was a great camera. I agree with the poster about manual mode though, it was more trouble than it was worth. The x300s I had - my first camera - was better, because it indicated not only the shutter speed you "should" be aiming for but also the one you had set. You could clearly see whether you were over or under the meter's recommendation, and by how much. But it was stolen from my wife's neck in Vietnam - lucky we only lost the camera!

And a fiver for an x700 sounds like a steal - lucky you!

I got my first TLR a few months ago - a second-hand Shanghai Seagull for 20 bucks at the market in Beijing. Film here costs A$1 a roll and I process it myself in the kitchen.

Why? Because I thought it would be fun (and it is). I know that the Shanghai Seagull has a crappy lens but I don't care - I bought it knowing that the images would have a certain vignetted aesthetic which is good for what I want to do with it. If I keep liking it, maybe one day I will get a MF camera with better quality optics.

For now, it's just about having fun.

The shower works for me too - no problems - and our house is very dusty (yes we do clean regularly, all you funny guys out there!).

Just run the shower for a while. Hang up your film. If you have a heat lamp, turn that on, then close the door and come back later. It worked for me about ten minutes ago! Do a practice run to see how long it takes, which will depend on the size of your room, and whether you have a heat lamp.

Our shower has an extractor which I run to reduce any potential for stinking out the shower room - it doesn't cause any dust to get on the films I've done so far.

Hey man, relax! There must be a camera shop somewhere near you that still does passport photos. After all, people still travel, right? They still need passports? They must be getting their photos somewhere.

If you do need to do it yourself with film, here is a way. Get a normal print from a lens of yours. Work out the dimensions required for the passport shot. Then work out what size that is compared to the print. For example if you took the shot on a 50mm lens and the passport photo you need is (for argument's sake) a quarter of that size, then set your tripod so that your face fills a little less than a quarter of the frame. Do several at slightly different distances and you should get a couple that are ok (make sure your print is the same size as the comparison one). Then just cut it out at the right size with a sharp knife and a ruler. I did this once and it worked.

Most Western governments have introduced new rules about passport shots and you should check with yours about the requirements if you want to do the photos yourself. These apply not only to print size but also background colour, hair styling (ie not covering the face), shadows, glasses (only spectacles if you normally wear them), etc. These new requirements are often stricter now than previously, partly as as a result of new US rules introduced since September 11 2001. I know that the Australian passport photo requirements have tightened up considerably in recent years as a direct result of this.

Most of all, you should not worry about the archival quality of your image. First, most new passports contain a scanned image of the photo you submit with your application so you can't just switch your photo under the laminate of someone else's passport (although it may be different in your country). Second, I am sure even a crappy digital print will last as long as your passport!

Finally, if anyone says you look bad in your passport photo, show them your real face and they will realise how goodlooking you are in real life!

Hi,

I just finished 7 straight months of backpacking in Iceland, eastern Europe and Central America. I had a film SLR, and a 20, 28, 50 and 135 lenses. I used the 28 the most, then the 50, then the 20, then the 135. I think I could have had just as much fun with only the 28 and the 50. The 20 was good in Iceland but I didn't use it much after that. And the 135 was usually too powerful. I often thought I would prefer an 85 or 90.

If I were you I'd leave the big one at home.

And I always had my trusty beaten up Olympus XA in my pocket! Lots of my "keepers" came from that even though I had the SLR in my shoulder bag almost always.

PS Scotland rocks. I lived a year in Glasgow and while they said it only had two seasons (winter and May), I'd be one of that percentage who would go back tomorrow if I could!

Have a great holiday!

Nice one!

I swear by my Crumpler Bunny Man (shoulder bag, green and green, bought for exactly the same reason that I didn't want it to look like a camera bag).

It has been put through 6 weeks trekking in Iceland, where it proved in daily torrents that it was waterproof, 4 weeks in Eastern Europe, and 3 months slumming it through Central America from Guatemala through to Costa Rica and everywhere in between - on very basic and dirty local transport.

It is still in fine condition, maybe a little "patina" so I don't look like I just walked out of the store, but certainly not filthy. And my gear is easily accessible, and safe from bumps and the elements. It keeps 2 SLRs, 4 lenses and a bunch of film and little things.

Yay Crumpler! An awesome bag.

R

Hi,

I'd spend time at Erg Chebbi - I went (admitteedly 8 years ago) and it was pretty easy to organise a camel safari either in Ourzazate or in the little hamlet right next to the erg chebbi dunes (can't remember its name). we rented a car in Ourzazate and drove easily enough down to that little hamlet (Erfoud, I think, it just came back to me).

camping out in the dunes was cold (February) but great.

Nearby there is a town called Rissani which is photogenic in its own way. It has a market and a donkey park (like a car park for people's donkeys). When I was there, there were very few foreigners about. We had to get our Berber guide who took us on the camel safari to drive the Renault there - I didn't have the courage to hammer a hire car (bought on my Visa!) hard enough to get over the sandy tracks.

Enjoy - it's a great place and very beautiful. Keep smiling with all the carpet salesmen. They're cool if you don't lose yours!

R

Essouira is worth it too.

Hey man your camera never lies. That's definitely a Sabre.

An Impala (I think) was a Macchi trainer jet - doesn't have the intake on the nose (in the

wings instead) and has wing tip fuel tanks and straight wings. Quite distinctively not a

Sabre with its nose intake and swept wings.

I once met a really nice woman who had a camera like yours. Ahhh memories...

Hi, would that voltage adapter you mention work in a Gossen light meter (the Lunasix

kind)? I have just yesterday got some batteries of the PX625 size but they are 1.55v.

I figured I could work out the difference and just compensate for it, but your mention of

different response curve makes me wonder.

Do you know a link where I can learn a little more about that adapter?

grateful for any advice.

R

Readers might be interested in this article from "The Australian" newspaper (a major

serious newspaper in Australia, where else?).

Lots to agree with, lots to disagree with, but interesting reading:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20876,18925277-16947,00.html

There are some pretty convincing reasons in a lot of those posts.

I'm not a pro at all, but I use both digital and film. For me, the film is both the main

medium and acts a backup.

On my travels I take my SLR with b/w film, and I have another lighter body tucked away in

there which I use for slides. I use my more rugged camera (Minolta 9000) for the BW work

because that is what I mainly prefer and I am more comfortable with that camera.

Sometimes I like slides (usually of a landscape) so I'll crack out the Minolta 505 that used

to belong to my wife. It's very light and I hardly notice it is there.

She hasn't touched it since she got a Canon Ixus 40. Apples and oranges, I know, but she

loves the Ixus and never wants enlargements. And she likes the movie feature - not

everyone wants to be the next Sebastio Salgado! And since ditching the SLR she has really

discovered a love of photography and makes some really good, interesting images.

But I also have a pocket sized Olympus XA which I use with colour print film and just keep

handy - as a backup for her Ixus 40 which often runs out of battery power or memory card

space at the most inopportune times. She does a lot of in-camera editing and makes a lot

of short movies, and hates to delete anything.

So when she runs out of juice, it's often my "crappy" little XA or one of the film SLRs that

comes to the rescue.

(Equally i must confess she has rescued me from time to time when I ran out of film).

I have a nice film scanner and a nice printer, so I can still do digital processing if I want,

and make colour prints from slides. I use a darkroom for the b/w. And because I never sell

anything, turnaround time is irrelevant to me. In fact, like others, I enjoy the experience of

opening a box of slides weeks after a trip, and firing up the projector. Somehow it always

beats iPhoto on a 12 inch screen...

So there's a complete amateur's view on it, to complement the experience of those other

photographers above whose reputation or livelihood depends on getting things right. I

think it's best to just work out what you like (or what you need), and go for it.

BTW I was fascinated by the concert photography post, sounds incredible!

Hey everyone, thank you very much for the replies - very helpful!

I had some 100 speed but I normally prefer 400, at the time I just thought "oh well I'll try it

at 400". Sounds like not the best idea - we shall see how it turns out!

Thanks again everyone, I appreciate the help.

R

Hi everyone,

I am processing T-Max 400 (and 100 rated at 400) in a 2 reel tank (not at the same time).

All I could get was D-76 and Ilford Developer, Stop and Fixer. At the moment of purchase I

thought that I should use D-76 as it was Kodak film, but that stop and fixer should be

"much of a muchness" (especially the stop bath).

Instinct and (limited) experience tells me that this should be more or less ok, no?

Does anyone know of any major problems that I should expect?

I am not a super-perfectionist, I just want to develop my negatives adequately. I don't have

the option to get other chemicals at the moment, and I don't really

want to go back and buy the Ilford developer.

Grateful for any responses.

Hey Anthony,

I am pretty sure ACS (Customs) x-rays every piece of incoming mail from overseas (they

are supposed to anyway). So you'd need to find some system of alerting them to your

package before it gets bulk x-rayed at the airport or mail depot. I bet they use the

stronger xrays, not the hand luggage variety.

I have no idea how to set this up, unfortunately. If you find out it would be good to know!

good luck.

R

I spent 6 weeks in iceland last summer, mostly outside of the capital - it is a glorious

country.

But the previous poster is spot on - outside of Reykjavik you'll have little chance of buying

anything other than outrageously priced Kodak colour print film. Take what you need with

you. We found Iceland to be the most expensive place we'd ever been - and we were

coming from 6 months in London!

But it is so beautiful. I hope you have a great time. The trek from Landmannalaugar to

Skogar is not to be missed if you love amazing landscapes. My only regret was that we

couldn't stay longer.

I spent the last 3 months in Central America and even the smallest most remote villages in

places like el Salvador have internet cafes. You can just burn a CD of your images. We

travelled the whole time with only 1 x 0.5 gig card (because the 1gig card died) and it was

no problem. We burned a about 1 CD every ten days or so.

I was in Spain a year ago and there are similarly plenty of net cafes (didn't have digital

back then so didn't try the burning thing). Spain is obviously a first worl country - but my

point is just that if relatively undeveloped central america has loads of net access,

somewhere like Spain will have even more.

Don't take your laptop: even if it is a lightweight one, that's still a kilogram you have to lug

around for no reason.

As for access to power, i guess it depends on what kind of camera you use, but maybe

your biggest problem won't be downloading photos, but recharging your camera?

have fun!