stephen_mcateer

John — the guy was Stuart Pilkington. Found an old email from him. Cheers.

@John Seaman Thanks for that, John. I don't think this is the guy I had in mind though. I'll keep searching... maybe his name will come back to me.

I'm trying to remember the name of an English photographer who had a stroke several years ago. I entered a competition he had organised, roughly ten years ago. He suffered the stroke shortly thereafter and was pretty badly affected I think. I'm just wondering how he's doing but can't remember his name or find any trace online. [He was middle-aged and his mother organised a fund-raising website to help him out after the stroke, if that's any help.] Thanks in advance.

Thanks for that Robin.

You make a good point Ken. I should put the camera on a tripod in good light and see if things look any different. Looking at this image again, it does look slightly soft to me — putting it on the tripod would at least rule out camera shake being the cause. Thanks.

Yes it's a flatbed John. And it is old — maybe 15 years or more. I do have a DSLR and light box which I've used before for 'Scanning' negs but I find the flatbed simpler. (I don't have space to have the DSLR rig set up permanently.) I think I'll check the focus on the flatbed as a first step. I think you're right in saying, though, that photographing negs gives sharper results.

Thanks kmac. I sent the film off to a lab for development, so I'm assuming the dev is okay. Exposure — I used my Minolta Autometer IV to take an incident reading, though from experience that's not a 100% guarantee of correct exposure. I have a Kaiser LED panel — I have to say I don't use it to critically evaluate the negs before scanning though, I just tend to scan anything that looks like a reasonable composition (Which can lead to scanning dud images). I think you're right about old scanners — the maximum optical resolution of this one is apparently 2400 DPI. (I like the 'Soft' light from its fluorescent tube versus LED scanners , which look a bit harsh to me). As I said to John Seaman, above, I think I need to find out how to correct for scanner focusing errors. Cheers.

Thanks John. I think you're probably right about the scanner — I need to figure out how to check / adjust its focus. I'll research that today. Cheers.

Update — the image here on photo.net is not well-displayed. A larger file is here if you wish to see it properly: https://stephenmcateer.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/img484-copy-scaled.jpg

Back to my Rolleiflex 3.5F Planar again: I'm wondering if it's focusing correctly. If I zoom in on the attached image, the main subject — a Poplar tree — seems not quite as sharp as the leaves intruding on the image at left. Note: I cropped the image to about 1/3 of the original area so that if fit the file size limit here. Technical details: Kodak Portra 400 Oleson focus screen From memory, f8 at about 1/60 or 1/125 (Or thereabouts) Hand-held Scanned on an Epson 4990 flatbed Camera had a CLA late last year Thanks for your opinion.

@orsetto Thanks for those insights. I've been keeping an eye on medium-format prices on eBay Uk and they do indeed seem to be falling. You mention Hasselblad: I have a nice 501CM that I don't want to keep. I will list it on eBay in a couple of weeks and see how it goes. There's a specialist V-series repair man in the UK (I forget his name) who might be able to service / repair it but as you say it gets expensive. I also have a nice (Not perfect) Rollei that I prefer to the 501, but again, it's looking like I might have to send it overseas for repair in future, so I may have to think carefully about hanging onto it. The Mamiya TLRs are nice, not-too-expensive cameras that do the job (I have a 330 Pro. Yes I have too much gear.). I've never tried to repair one, but if the shutters are as simple as you say, there's maybe not too much to worry about. And with the relatively low cost of these lenses, I suppose if they break it might be less headache to just buy a replacement. The bodies seems to be pretty bulletproof. And it's a camera that does 90% of what I need / want.

That's what's happening here in the UK. Prescient. I sold off all my stuff and went digital, then re-bought it all at inflated prices. I find that I buy stuff, get bored with it and decide to sell it. Usually I break even or make a small profit. Just not so sure about that being the case in future.

@c_watson1 I have a few film cameras in good condition,but I only really need two. The others are useful now and again but I don't often use them. Just wondering whether or not to hang onto them. On the one hand, they're not making them any more, so you would expect prices to go up. On the other, there's an ever-diminishing number of people to repair and service them, so maybe there'll be decreasing demand…

I think the vendor said it had come out of a storage unit, so anything's possible.

I see that Newton Ellis in Liverpool are shutting shop this summer. They are perhaps the best-known repairers of analogue cameras in the UK. As the number of service and repair shops dwindles over the coming years, I wonder if the value of medium-format film cameras will go up or down? And what do we do with cameras that need repair?