photojim

<p>Lots of Nikons have high-eyepoint viewfinders that are perfectly pleasant for glasses wearers. However, the precise combination you have asked for is trickier to find.<br>

<br />The F3HP is a good choice - manual wind is not an issue unless you are doing sports or actoin photography. You can add an inexpensive (though large) motor drive if you need automatic film advance.<br>

The F801/F801s/N8008/N8008s and F90/N90/F90x/N90s are good choices too but are autofocus cameras. They have built-in motors, excellent meters and shutters that top out at 1/8000 sec. It's hard to go wrong with them. Other bodies like the F100 are even better, but more money.<br>

<br />If you want to go crazy and don't care what you spend, the F4 (non-S non-E) with MB-20 battery pack - a rare beast - is reasonably small, has great ergonomics and is a real joy to use - but the MB-20 battery pack that makes it manageable in size is hard to get at a decent price. KEH sometimes sells F4 bodies with the MB-20 - this is the most cost-effective way to get one . It was cheaper for me to get a second F4, with MB-20, than to buy the MB-20 by itself - no problem since I like the F4!</p>

<p>Try one roll and see, but unless it was frozen nearly all of its life, it's likely not going to be great. Even if it has been frozen, there may be some base fog and some colour shifts.</p>

<p>There are also degrees of "frozen"... frozen at -3 C is not as good as freezing at -17 C, e.g.</p>

<p>A good Paterson tank should leak minimally. I don't have major problems with leakage . Are you putting the lids on correctly?<br>

<br />If you find doing single rolls of 120 to be inconvenient, a simple solution is to get one of the big tanks and do multiple rolls at once. That will make you spend less time processing, relatively speaking.<br>

<br />You could also get Jobo tanks and a rotary processor for it, but I find that rotary development adds its own issues.</p>

<p>In the film days, the way photographers dealt with the "peach fuzz" issue on portraits wasn't to use grainier film... it was to use a lens with spherical aberration. The Nikkor 105/2.5, used wide open, is a little soft and this is intentional.</p>

<p>I may be low-tech but I find that clothespins work fine. I grab the smallest amount of the sheet's corner that I can that will hold the sheet securely. I find there's enough unexposed margin on at least one corner that this works alright. No problems with film falling yet. :) Just make sure you use good clothespins, not super-worn ones that are loose.<br>

<br />Clothespins work for roll film too - I prefer the Paterson clips but when I do too much film and run out of clips, two clothespins on the top and four on the bottom (for weight) work well enough.</p>

<p>D-76 undiluted is much more of a solvent developer than it is when diluted 1:1. This will result in noticeably finer grain with the side effect of there being some sharpness loss. (Sharp grain means sharper images, alas.)<br>

<br />For portraits you might find the softness flattering. For gritty work where sharpness is more important, diluted D-76 will do a better job.<br>

<br />Incidentally there are non-solvent developers like PMK and Pyrocat-HD that will give you tremendous sharpness but not exaggerate the grain. They are worth trying.</p>

<p>Store it in negative sheets under a heavy weight for a few days (or more, if needed) - that cures the problem. Unfortunately, this solution requires patience.<br>

I seem to be about two years behind in my printing, and by the time I get to the sheets with Foma negatives in them (stored normally in my 3-ring binders), they tend to be flat. If you want to print two days after processing, it's a little more adventuresome.</p>

<p>You can make D-76 from scratch. Hydroquinone, metol, sodium sulfite, and borax, if memory serves. It is no matter if Kodak discontinues it.</p>

<p>I mix from scratch all the time.<br>

Most glycin-based developers last a long time - longer than glycin does as a powder. I mixed up 9 litres of Ansco 130 yesterday (99 grams of glycin required - Photographer's Formulary sells a 100-gram container of glycin so it's almost perfect and gives you a tiny bit of room for error). It keeps a couple of years as a stock solution if it's in full, tightly-closed bottles.</p>

<p>I just round the Paterson chemistry needs to 300 mL, which is very metric to me. 500 mL for a roll of 120. Very easy.</p>

<p>I use a Jobo tank and several Patersons. I like them both. I find the Patersons slightly easier to use.</p>

<p>There is no 8-roll Jobo tank, but you can get an extender for the Jobo tank that will let you take a total of 5 rolls of 35mm. In theory you could add two extenders, I suppose, but the Paterson is nice in that it is a single tank without extra seams to leak.</p>

<p>Alec, if you don't want to mix up a full US gallon of D76 at a time, buy the bulk ingredients (metol, hydroquinone, sodium sulfite and borax) and make up as little or as much as you like at a time.</p>

<p>I use wooden clothespins. They're boring and they're cheap but they work fine. Just grab the tiniest part of the corner of the frame. There is usually enough margin on one of the corners, I find.</p>

<p>Clothespins work alright for rollfilm too - I often develop more rolls than I have clips (which I do prefer for rollfilm). Two pins on the top, four on the bottom for weight, do the job reasonably well.</p>

<p>Potassium-based stop baths are deadly problematic; Anchell and Troop write about that. My guess is that a citric or acetic acid stop bath or running water fix get rid of the potassium well enough to avoid the problem.</p>

<p>How often, when and where is the show?<br>

I get to Toronto a couple of times a year and I'd like to check it out, if I can make it work.</p>

<p>D-76 and ID-11 are essentially identical. Ilford's is closer to the original formula, which is why the ingredients come in two packets. Kodak's is cheaper (at least on my side of the Atlantic and on my perch north of the 49th parallel). Both come in one-litre packages but here, at least, larger packets of Kodak chemicals come in peculiar US measures which I find to be quite annoying.<br>

I mix D-76 from scratch a fair bit and it works well. There are some alternate formulas that supposedly do away with the tendency of D-76 to gain in activity with age. They are worth trying, if you're mixing from raw chemicals.</p>

<p>I find that when you buy brick quantities of film from Adorama or B&H (and presumably Freestyle but I've not tried it), you get a brick or box. I often get large quantities of 135-36 Fuji Superia in various sizes, and I get it in bricks anytime I order enough. It's easier for them to fill the order that way.</p>

Having multiple bodies is very useful. You can shoot different speeds or types of film. You can mount two different lenses and be able to shoot more quickly. You have redundancy in case one body fails.

One thing to keep in mind is that these shutters like to be exercised. Fire your camera at every speed once or twice a year to keep the shutter working properly, especially if you don't tend to use all the speeds.

 

It might be that your camera needs adjustment (follow the advice above first) and if so, send it to a shop for a CLA (clean, lubrication and adjustment). Mechanical shutters need these adjustments more frequently than electronic shutters, but still not all that frequently (every few years typically).

The 17-35/2.8 is far nicer, but for the money, the 18-35 is a terrific value. I wouldn't hesitate to get it if I couldn't afford the 17-35.

Keep trying. It gets easier. :)

A good rule of thumb:

 

Multiply the ISO by the number of shots you are taking.

 

e.g. if you take 8 shots on ISO 100 film, meter each shot as if the film were ISO 800.

Those prices are slightly high. I got my N8008s (=F801s) from keh.com in Atlanta for $41 US. F90x/N90s bodies are around $100 or so.

 

The F90x/N90s is a better camera - faster autofocus, wider lens compatibility. However, the F801s is a nice camera too. I am surprised at how nice it is, actually. The autofocus is competent and the camera is quite a pleasure to use.

 

Still, the F90x is significantly better.

 

Get both from KEH (both will cost you less than the F801 you want to buy locally) and you'll have a second body to use, which can be indispensible. And both take easily found and inexpensive AA batteries.

To do a decent photograph that size you're pretty much going to have to use a large format camera.

 

Large format digital backs are horrendously expensive (tens of thousands of dollars) but a drum scan from sheet film won't be too expensive.

 

I own a 4x5 camera and I'm not even sure it's up to this job. I'd have to do some math. My instinct is that you'd want an 8x10 negative or larger.

Why not Bronica?

 

Bronica stuff is way underpriced for what it can do. The lenses are very good, the quality of the gear is high and the cameras have interchangeable backs. If you shoot 6x6 (the SQ series) then the issue of shooting horizontally or vertically is moot. Shoot as you wish and crop if and as you wish.

 

I just purchased an SQ-A system and I like it so far. One body, three backs, a 50, an 80 and a 150 for well under a thousand bucks, in nice condition, from a reliable dealer.

I took my 80-200/2.8 ED to Europe with me, and I schlepped it around quite and I used it quite a lot. I shoot film and I prefer to use ISO 100 film when I can. If you prefer the higher quality of shooting at lower ISOs, the same logic will apply to you.

 

Only you can decide if the size, weight and cost are tolerable. I only paid $500 for my lens used, and it doesn't do vibration reduction, but at 1/3 of the price, I don't care.