henkelphoto

Hi guys! Just decided to use my Leica IIIf while sitting around doing nothing. Unfortunately, I've discovered that it has a multitude of pin holes in the shutter curtain so am sending it off to be fixed. But I was able to pull out this photo of the Thunderbirds doing a flyover on our local hospitals last week in honor of medical people working with Covid-19 patients. This as scanned in on my Dimage Scan Elite 5400 scanner at 36"x25" @ 200 dpi and then I hugely cropped this out of that to get rid of the pin holes ergo the extreme grainyness.

 

Have you thought about donating to a university or some wildlife group?

No I don't use Dropbox, but the client mentioned Google Links which is free. I can upload the entire folder and send her a link. I'm trying to figure out how to use it. Another problem is that I would like to watermark the pictures in that folder. Hopefully I can set up a batch program in PS but i'm not sure...

I don't think you can batch process in PS (possibly in CC, but I don't have that subscription). You can in Lightroom.

Looks like this is a manual focus lens, AIS, AI? Price?

Do you use dropbox? I had a client who liked to look at all the photos (fortunately, unedited--she was very knowledgeable). I just dumped the whole take onto dropbox and she could look at all the photos, compare them against what I worked up and ask to see any I didn't work up. In three years, I don't think there was more than three that she requested.

I just checked with my go-to E6 lab, Process One in Kansas City, and they will push C41 at no additional charge.

 

https://processonephoto.com/print-film-processing.htm

A bit off topic, but I have to mention it. I was talking one day with the curator of the Clark County, Nevada, museum. You might have seen him on Pawn Stars--Mark Hall Patton. I asked him what the museum does for archiving photos. He said the first thing they do when they receive a photo is to make an archival quality print on acid free paper and then store it in a folder they keep in their safe. He said that way, no matter what happens to file formats, they still have the original print they can make a scan from.

I noticed that your trip says from Baltimore to Los Angeles. It looks like you'll be traveling the same areas that are covered by I-44 and I-40. Be aware when people tell you about the California gold country (and Bodie) that those areas are about 300-400 miles to the north of Los Angeles. Coming into Los Angeles on I-15, there are a number of small, abandoned houses and businesses that are accessible from the service roads between the Nevada state line and Barstow (where I-40 connects to I-15). There's even an abandoned water park at Newberry Springs, but not much left of it except the hills where the slides used to be and a whole bunch of graffiti.

 

If you do come down I-40, Get off at Seligman and go on the old US-66 through Peach Springs which will connect to Kingman where you can pick up I-40 again.

Wow! I haven't seen one of those 500mm mirror lenses in quite some time.

I do enjoy shooting film and I do shoot differently because I use prime lenses when shooting film and mostly with digital I'm using zoom lenses. I pretty much only shoot b/w film, recently I've been toying with the idea of shooting monotone photos with digital and see how they compare. The biggest problem I have is that I no longer have a darkroom so shooting film is a bit of a pain.

Sometimes the photos I want to shoot don't match the 2/3 format. In these cases, I do crop, sometimes radically (I recently printed a 12x24 photo). But yes, as the above, I try to compose in the viewfinder if at all possible.

Well, of course, the nice thing about Nikon is that you can use those old manual lenses on the D7100 body. I had Canon for many years (FD system) but had to make a decision when Canon changed their lens mount for accommodate the new larger autofocus lenses. I decided to go with Nikon at that time due to the fact that they still used the same mounting system. A few years ago when I was still working in the PJ world, I would alternate between using the company Canon equipment and using my own Nikon equipment. Not too much difference, I liked the auto white balance better on the Nikon (D700 and D300). Other than that, the biggest problem was that the focus (for manual) and zoom rings move in opposite directions!

In the past, I've used long underwear, flannel shirt, wool cable knit sweater, polartec jacket, a down vest over that and then a gor-tex shell jacket over all. I use thin polartec gloves with ski mittens, thin liner socks with wool socks and a pair of boots that I call my clown boots, because they are larger than my other boots due to the thinsulate insulation with gor-tex liner for waterproofing. I've used a ski mask or a watch cap with thinsulate lining at various times. I put snow seal on the outside of the boots. I keep an extra battery (or two) in my inside pocket next to my body to keep it/them warm. No problems with the lenses fogging up until I go inside. When that happens, I take all the lenses out of the bag, pull off caps and let them warm up for 1/2 to 1 hour. Lens stays on the camera while warming up so not to fog the sensor.

Jeff, what type of drone are you using for your real estate photos?

When I worked for the Los Angeles Times, we used to play around with making up nicknames for ourselves in case we got one of those never to be repeated shots that could make a person many thousands of dollars on resales. Two of our favorites were "Al Carbon" and "Al Fresco". Of course, we never followed through on this. Either because we were loyal, or because we never got that shot!

I don't know where you live, but many local camera stores have "beginner" classes that are quite reasonable (usually in the $50 range). Also, since she has mobility problems, perhaps you should look into the Olympus line of cameras, they are micro 4/3s and as long as you stay away from the very high end glass, are quite a small package that is much easier (and lighter) to get around with.

Back in the old days (I'm talking around 1980-85 here), we used to push tri-x to about 3200/6400 asa (iso) by using HC-110. Can't remember the dilution rate, but our time was about 3 1/4 minutes and I believe the temp was around 75 (maybe 85?). We also used Rodinal. We were working for a newspaper with a 65 line screen, so the huge particles of grain weren't a problem

Actually, all film cameras use the same films, it just depends on what you are shooting. TriX is a good film to start with, easily developed in either D-76 or T-Max developer. Can't tell you if there's a better way to process film as you don't say how you are doing it now.

Hi Gary, I also owned the Olympus system. In fact, I traded in all my Nikon gear to get an entire OMD setup. That was about three years ago. Beautiful glass, light weight and I really, really liked the EVF. But unfortunately, out of three cameras (1-em5, 2 em-1s) two (both em1s) gave me constant shutter lock up problems. To the point that I felt I just could not rely on them anymore. Now perhaps I'm just unlucky, but I am a member of an Olympus OMD group on Facebook and I see people with the same problem occurring with great regularity. So, I recently made the switch back to Nikon. Now, of course, I'm really, really wanting the new Z7! Granted, it still uses the same big lenses (full-frame), but the body is very small and light. I wish you good luck with your Oly gear. I wish I could have felt comfortable with it.

You can stay in Bridgeport, CA, which has some nice places. From there, it's only about 15 minutes to the turnoff to Bodie. If I remember correctly, Bodie is three miles up a well maintained dirt road from the turnoff (I could be wrong on the distance on the dirt road). You can also get in Mono Lake on the same trip. In fact, I'm planning such a trip for myself and a friend. We'll stay in Bridgeport overnight, get up about 3-4 am (depending on what time of year we go) drive down to Mono for the sunrise on the tufa formations then stop off in Bodie on the way back to Bridgeport.

 

Bear in mind that due to the elevation, if there are early or late snows, the roads to Bodie will be closed in the shoulder seasons, and are always closed in the winter.

 

If you are in the (relatively) same area of California--San Francisco, you could drive up into Marin County and visit Muir Woods, which has some very nice redwood trees. The walkways are pretty much level and there are places to rest all along the trail. You need to get there early though or parking is a real problem.

While walking around Bodie is not very strenuous, it's elevation is about 8300' so breathing is a bit labored.

WAngell--loved your photos and travelogue!

I would agree that the "media" has radically changed in the past 10 years, especially the word side.

Oh, I might add that once Eric Draper left the AP and became George Bush's personal photographer, his objectivity was definitely tilted! But then again, he was no longer bound by the ethics of photojournalists.

And their personal bias is completely divorced from their work?

Oh, there were times, but by and large, yes. Now as to your comment about the last two days, I'll have to agree with you.