fg

Did my first batch of C-41 development at home with my trusty/rusty/dusty Jobo

CPP processor. Kept first developer at 38 sharp, reducing dev. time of about 10

seconds and film came out real nice. The film was shot with a "new" Canon F-1

New and AE Finder I got off *bay in LN condition and a 50 mm lens. Overall, a

nice and rewarding travel back in to film time!

Anyway, I frequently process E-6 and have to say that C-41 is not more

difficult, actually it seems a little more tolerant in terms of time and

temperature with post-developer baths.

Now I'm gonna try out E-6 cross processing... do you guys have previous

experience with X processing and, in case, any suggestions about films, film

speed, development times?

F.

Hello,

I happened to like E100 G for scanning a lot! Excellent neutral tones and, superior dinamic range and readability of dark areas. As far as I know, Fuji Astia is also thought of showing similar qualities but I have not tried that myself. I hate Provia: blue-ish and muddy when scanned. Try out Kodak E100 G + polarizer/warm-up.

Bye,

F.

Gentlemen,

let me introduce myself to the FD Forum with my little new toy. I am a

freelance software developer based in Italy, in love with photography since

being a kid. I was twelve when doing my film development in my parents'

bathroom long time ago (in Rodinal, barely gettin' it right!) and taking

picture for my school events. Heck, I also had a part-time advertising photo

studio at some point, not more than 5 years ago, which I then dismissed.

Now that I'm almost 40, have beautiful baby girl and wife to care of, I decided

to get a little romantic and not only sticking to film for shooting her and my

beautiful wife but to do so with one of the cameras I was in love with right

when I started this hobby. I ordered a mint F-1 New from *bay, dusted off some

FD lenses that had been resting in boxes for almost 20 years and, gosh, I

happen to love the thing!

The camera is perfect. Like new. It came with a beautiful AE Finder and a mint

FN Motor Drive is also on its way. The camera does indeed work smoothly: dials

and everything have just the right feel, the finder is very clean, No marks on

paint either. Gourgeous. Tonight, when family will be in bed, I'll stay awake

to process some C-41 800 ASA Fuji roll with the old Jobo and see what comes

out. I have great hope.

I have many systems, from Nikon AF and Hasselblad V to Linhof Toyo view cameras

(I'm a bit of a film fanatic, really, and have surely bought more than I can

play with!) but the F-1 is probably my private little proustian madeleine from

a time when the F-1 was just too out of reach for my empty pockets and a Zenith

with non working exposimeter was my workhorse.

Check out my portfolio in the next few days: as soon as I finished testing the

camera I plan a visit to Venice towards the end of January for an exhibition

and for shooting with the F-1!

Francesco

Mike,

to answer your question, my 4x5 Toyos (I have a monorail and a folding 45AII) saw

the 72 XL and the 110XL for most interior shots. After I decided to move the

production workflow down to 6x7 I purchased the 47XL to replace the 72 perspective.

But I feel I do miss those few millimiters that would give me a more dramatic effect,

especially when shooting large showrooms with a few pieces of furniture in the

foreground and architectural structures in the background. Thanks for your input so

far.<div></div>

Hi Folks,

I run an advertising photography studio in Italy and 40% of my business comes from

architectural reportage work done for architects and publishers. After a few years

struggling with 4x5 I have now settled on 6x7 with a Linhof Technikardan S23, which

has proven useful in the studio too, easily interfaced to our Imacon Ixpress digiback.

I miss the ability to go really wide, sort of 20mm or less in 135. Our shortest lens is a

Schneider 47 XL, providing an equivalent 24mm coverage in the 135 format. Not

enough in many cases.

I would invest in a shorter lens but... which one? So far the alternatives we have

evaluated.

1) get the Schneider 38 explicitely made for the Technikardan S23. I am dubious

about its modest coverage and fear vignetting. I have no chance to try one in my area,

without ordering it first and pay for it!!!

2) forget film and get one of those hibrid camera that accepts ultrawide Nikon lenses

and a digiback, fit a 17mm lens, and forget about movements when doing really wide

shots. In this scenario, the Ixpress would be used for preview and shooting.

3) go 4x5 and use the 47XL. Uhmmm... too much overhead in terms of time and

money. The 6x7 format makes a lot more sense in business terms.

To me, the second option seems convenient, apparently. But in the real world

digibacks are bad for architecture work, since there's no way to make multiple

exposures in order to properly balance mixed light sources and achieve professional

results. My specialty on film, my images come from a average of 5 separate

exposures filtered appropriately. I've tried doing some work with a Schneider Digitar

28/2.8 on the TK S23 and the Ixpress but I admit that convenience comes at the

expense of quality.

Soooo, looks like the only reasonable option seems to try the 38mm on the 6x7

format.

Any hints on this lens?<div></div>

I run an advertising photography studio. Our archive of images is huge to say the

least and we ended up developing a small PHP/MySQL application running on the Mac

OS X Apache web server. All images that are going to be archived on CD, DVD or

external backup disks are resized to small JPEG miniatures (500x500 pixels) with a

Photoshop Droplet that and stored on the server disk in this "inexpensive" format.

The miniatures directory is scanned by a simple AppleScript that feeds the file names

into a MySQL table. The images table is then read by PHP and displayed automatically

in Safary as a contactsheet, by linking the filenames to the actual miniatures. All very

neat and simple. Before doing this, we were printing contactsheets from the digital

images and store the print in proximity of our CD library. It proved a very good

method, but the PHP way allows faster searches.

Sorry to say that no existing commercial application filled our needs. The worrying

part is the proprietary file formats, if you consider the long-term value (sentimental

or economic) of a photographic archive.

Go ahead printing your contactsheets and make up a droplet to produce small JPEGs

miniatures from your originals. It's worth the hassle.

Travis, that's a great shot and the darkroom work you've done on it, adding drama by

enhancing contrast and grain, shows how brilliant your idea was. Congrats.

Hi Folks,

a couple minutes to share some thoughts about something that has recently

happened to me.

I did lots of digital shooting recently. I mean, lots of it! I am an advertising

photographer by profession and run a small studio in Italy specializing in

food and beverage photography. 20-30% of my budget comes from architecture

photography, I love it and always hunt for new work in this area. I guess it lets me

take a breath of fresh air from studio work. Healthy. Sooo, I was saying that I shot a

lot of digital recently. Actually, the last three months have been hectic. About ten

food catalogues and ads (around 10.000 pictures), about the same number of

architecture sessions spread across shops, villas, commercial buildings. All done with

a Linhof Technikardan S23 equipped with an Imacon Ixpress digital back (love it!) and

Digitar lenses (sharp!). Minor catalogue shots done with a Fuji S2 PRO.

Always an eye on the histogram, white blow-out panic, color assessments, tons of

postproduction in general, CMYK conversions, proof printing... Wew! I did so much

digital file prep that if you show me a Macintosh I'll start to shiver.

Soooo, time to take a bit of a pause now. I'll be moving my studio in May this year

and plan to spend a few days travelling here and there while all the equipment gets

moved. First location will be London, next week. I'll leave the S2 at home, planning to

carry the M7+24 and M6TTL+75. Maybe, a 35 'lux will hang 'round in my bag, not

sure. Maybe, just the 75 on the M6. Yep, leave everything else at home. One exhotic

camera and one creative lens.

Eventually, I'll be able to relax from the dreaded histogram and blown-out white

histeria.

Long live digital, when it's making money for you and lets you work smarter than film.

But, definitely, I need a break from those histograms! : - )

Scott,

really like your picture of the cat. BUT the highlights in the eyes have a truly artificial

feeling, e.g. they are burned out. I downloaded the image and checked the hystogram

in Photoshop for confirmation and, yes, they are definitely blow out. I never get this

kind of artifacts when I scan my negs through a Nikon LS-8000. Don't get me wrong,

it's an excellent picture and light is really well interpreted. But those blown highlights

should make u think about not dropping film, yet. I use, on a daily basis, an Imacon

Ixpress digital back on Hasselblad (I'm an advertising photographer by profession)

and a Fuji S2 PRO for my free time (pretty scarce!). Although the Ixpress shines in

terms of dinamic range, the S2 does not. It gives me the same stuff you posted: small

areas of blownout whites. Digital is great, I would never think of going on assignment

without my Ixpress. Still, all my bags have a couple rolls of Ektachrome around, just

in case.

Keep it up!

...hope you like the idea (that's what an advertising photographer does in between

assignments!!! ehehe...)<div></div>

Dear Leicaphiles,

I'm having some time off my commercial work as advertising photographer to think

about new Leica photography ventures. This morning I was writing an e-mail to a

collegue and I just came out with this funny (new??? original???) emoticon

representing the happy Leica photographer. Here it is:

[o]-)

Hope you find it amusing as I did while designing it. And now... [o]-) [o]-) [o]-)back to

the street!

Francesco

I always wonder how this guy gets his time for learning all his tricks. Considering the

amout of messages in various forums I am under the impression he must be sitting

on a wheel chair testing out gear all day ;-)

A matter of briefing in my case. My commercial photography fills catalogues and

billboards, my personal shooting fills my books or my frames. Soooo, it mostly

depends on where/how you feel your images are going to be displayed. As far as the

subject structure goes, it is simply not relevant: there are thousand of example of

effective rendition of verticals in horizontal format and vice versa. My two cents.

Higher bath temperature (40+ Celsius) and overrating ISO a couple stops. But, mostly,

the bath has to be warmer than then usual 20°.

The Highlight/Shadow feature sounds exactly like what I've been waiting for. I wonder

if the guys at Abobe will eventually come up with some sort of "highlight-shadow-

auto-mask-command"...

Joel,

the picture shoes a horrible wallpaper in the background. Go change it, it's really

horrible!!! ;-)

Hi,

I use the Nikon 8000 a lot and would not recommend it for the price it is currently

sold at. The common problems with this model are:

1) banding: it does occur on 80% of scans, wether negs or slides. The cure is to set

the SupeFineScan mode on, but it increases scan times A LOT! End of the story is that

banding disappears but also productivity. Average scan times for a 6x7 original at

2000dpi, with SuperFine Scan turned on and 14 bit depth are around 10 minutes. Plus

preview and tweaking, it may go up to 15-20 minutes per scan. And you cannot do

this in batch if you aim at quality.

2) NikonScan, the software, easily clips lights/shadows. Easily! The workaround is not

to use curves/levels in NikonScan but to use Analog Gain instead, thereby controlling

the led inside the scanner for optimal exposure and, therefore, best histograms! It

took me more than a year to realize this after several tests.

I have few remaks on the actualy quality of the scans, although it is far from drum

scanning. In comparison, some scans we did through an Imacon were a lot better.

Drum scans are, finally, very far from what the Nikon 8000 can achieve.

Honestly, if I were you, I would either buy a low-end Imacon or just keep getting

drum scans.

Hope this helps.

Uhmmm, I had a long experience doing studio and location work with a 680. All in all,

a pain. The thing DOES NOT behave like a view camera and DOES NOT weight like a

medium format. Overall it's a strange beast, someone may even like it! BTW, I sold it

and got:

1) a Hassy, the perfect camera to have, fits nicely my Imacon Ixpress.

2) a Linhof Technikardan S23, perfect monorail shooting 6x7, very compact and light,

full standards movements, works great with digital back too!

Moral: go get the Technikardan and live happily everafter.

Francesco (now scanning a lot of 6x7 slides... what a pain!)

Stay with 35mm. It will cost u an eye and a kidney to build a decent MF system, as

well as to produce prints/slides out of it. BTW, I use Hasselblad.

1) everybody would like a digital back for their Ms

2) everybody would complain about poor quality of digital back and get back to trix

3) scanning s**ks!!! :-) reason displayed in attached picture<div></div>

Victor,

Vuescan actually gives me a better shaped, smooth and unclipped histogram to start

with in Photoshop. NikonScan never comes up with a decent histogram to start with

and, worse, often clips shadows by 30% or more with color negatives. The problem

with NikonScan is well known and it's a shame that Nikon has not supported the

software since more than a year ago.

My requirements for good scans are quite tight: I run a small advertising photography

studio and work every day with graphic professionals in print shops and advertising

agencies. No way I can provide them with the images that come out of NikonScan:

they simply would not print right in offset printing.