ian_tindale

How many megapixels do I use? I use all of them.

By the way, are the following all in fact the same camera, with minor differences according to the lens fitted in each case?

"Konica C35"; "Voigtl䮤er VF135"; "Rollei XF35"; "Minolta Hi-Matic"; "Vivitar 35EE"; "Mamiya 135EE"; "Chinon 35EE"; and probably more.

...as the actress said to the bishop.

<p>I'm currently shooting on a Vitomatic II with broken rangefinder, using it on <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/iantindale/tags/vitomaticii,zonefocus/">zone focus</a>, often without even looking through the viewfinder. Or more accurately, in actual fact, I'm alternating between dismantling it and remantling it and going out and shooting with it.</p>

Most recent burners should work fine these days. I'm typing this on my shiny modern iBook G4. Behind it there's a bare* "Pioneer DVR-111D" drive, connected to my hub via a USB to ATA/ATAPI adaptor (which comes with a drive-connector PSU). It just works. It works in the finder, for finder-driven burning, or equally well when I used to use other applications to burn my work. The OS now recognises it and treats it no differently to a build-in one. Prior to this DVR-111D I had a similarly capable contemporary NEC drive on here. Same story - it just worked. In fact, it just worked even more so.

 

* (ie, not in a case, just sitting on its side on the desk)

That's out-of-date information. Look at the actual machines involved - prehistoric ones.

This (not the D in my case) was quite the surprise lens. I bought it together with the 24-50mm in about 1988/89. The 70-210 was never used that much in all that time, the results were never scintillating or other than ho-hum. Until I purchased a D50, and realised how superb a lens this now is on digital bodies. It's absolutely superb.

Were both rolls developed together, or one after the other?

"Planet Claire has pink air,

All the trees are red,

No one ever dies there,

No one has a head"

 

(Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland of The B-52's, 1979)

Do you normally have a head?

I suspect that the greatest threat to P+S digital pocket cameras will actually emerge from a future increase in availability of low-cost compact video camcorders that can also offer significantly high enough quality photographically-useful stills. This isn't the same as simply storing a single video frame, as they used to do some years ago. Some of these digital camcorders now offer a fairly impressive facility to shoot and store photographs of several megapixels (in real terms) through a lens of adequate quality, and often offering a useful optical zoom range, in not greatly bigger a package than many point and shoots.

I've experimented with my Nikon D50*, Micro-Nikkor 55mm AF, SC-17 flash extension, SB-24 flash firing directly into the arrangement, and film gently taped to a small piece of white acrylic sheet for diffusion. It works, and it showed potential for working well. However, it's very tedious, and not at all fun. Contrast that with the scanner I subsequently bought, which is nice enough to use to become a reasonably addictive activity.

 

* I also was tempted to set up for my Nikon E995, which has a mode specifically to allow this sort of activity, even resulting in proper positive images from colour negs if you tell it that's what you're shooting - but the E995 was being faulty as usual.

I've got both a MyBook and a Passport. The MyBook failed (repetitive clunk of irritation) only about 10 months after purchase, so I replaced it with a pair of Seagate FreeAgent desktop units, copied off the data from the clunking unit and sent said MyBook back with an RMA number, overseas. Eventually, the replacement turned up. I wouldn't say I'd never touch another WD product again, but I think the FreeAgent is a nicer and somewhat more advanced unit.

 

All drives these days seem destined to fail earlier than one expects, and at best, you might be lucky and it lasts quite a while. Many people chime in to threads such as this with sentiments such as "had mine for [x amount of time] and I've never had any problems with it" but what they really mean is "...so far". I liked mine for the first ten months after purchase, then it failed, so I stopped liking it and started liking another.

 

The Passport is a nice little robust drive which I use to shunt things to and fro, but not as a continuously-used drive. More as if it were the equivalent of a rather large USB flash-memory drive. No complaints with it (other than that sizes much larger than mine are now available, and they all cost half what I paid for mine), but then, I've never had any problems with it. So far.

You're lucky you had such a recent and total backup to hand.

It depends how far away the puppy is from the camera and which zoom focal length. For example, if it's a very near shot of the puppy, macro may not be engaged at the outer limits of the zoom range.

Earlier on during this year I purchased a pair of Jessops bulk loaders - black oblong-shaped things. This was when the Jessops shop near me was closing down. The first one I bought had a dead counter. I replaced it and bought the second one at the same time, but the replacement had the same problem. So I took it apart and fixed it - it's an easy fix - a leaf spring can dislocate, resulting in the 'film left' counter not advancing. Since the fix, absolutely no problems. They're quite excellent. I've seen a similar (probably identical) one under the name 'Kaiser' for about five times what I paid for mine! Far better than those ovoidish-shaped loaders I used to use back in the early 80s.

This summer I shot my remaining rolls of Scala dated 1999. Turned out nice.

Just don't take it to your minilab and process it in C41:

<a href=" title="If you dev Scala in C41? by Ian Tindale, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/240/457577568_9c892cd92b_t.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="If you dev Scala in C41?" /></a>

It can be used as a normal black and white film. I used up my remaining rolls earlier this year, developing it as if it were just an ordinary black and white neg film. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/iantindale/archives/date-posted/2007/06/23/">Here</a>.

<p>My cheap little Rolleicord II's Triotar is absolutely excellent*:<p>

 

<a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img style="padding:0;margin:0;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1262/577592999_cb7f7bfab6_t.jpg" width="99" height="100" alt="Surface" /></a><a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img style="padding:0;margin:0;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/217/510659568_54a4f23ab3_t.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="SouthQuayLucky100CordII766" /></a><a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img style="padding:0;margin:0;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1149/991416818_17e1bee914_t.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="RolleicordSHD100Ilfotec753" /></a><a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img style="padding:0;margin:0;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1167/536523732_70789e99be_t.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="Greater London House" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/iantindale/512599111/" title="Photo Sharing"><img style="padding:0;margin:0;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/199/512599111_179b1bd18d_t.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="Boarding" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/iantindale/512605677/" title="Photo Sharing"><img style="padding:0;margin:0;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/226/512605677_205e34585b_t.jpg" width="99" height="100" alt="May contain nuts" /></a><a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img style="padding:0;margin:0;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1422/536634309_557270da16_t.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="Lucky400RolleicordIIOr870" /></a>

 

<p>* although my Mamiya TLR lenses better it, this doesn't make the Triotar a bad lens at all.<p>

I picked up a ten pack of new HP5+ in 120 for just over fifteen quid yesterday - http://www.silverprint.co.uk/ are doing a 30% discount on ten or more Ilford films right now.

I like how you got the Amazon web ad superimposed across the chaps back - that must've been a once in a lifetime shot.

When you finish the roll and hand it in for processing, if they look at you as though you're insane, then there wasn't a film in there.

Use it in a Holga, where it won't make any difference.

I think it depends. A photograph that in turn catalyses other people to write Brutally Original Long Lists Of Critical Knowledge Semblances is probably earning its keep by stimulating such conversational outbursts. Better a photograph is talked about at all, than ignored?