hank_skinner

don't wipe his post off the face of the Earth - even if it's in the "wrong forum". <p/>You see, I already have

some reservations about this site and whether I should join. And if someone is being so mistreated that they

post on another forum; then, well, I'm having issues myself now - I think they did it because their issues were

not being addressed. Add in that their post disappears almost instantly? I'm sorry. WARNING.<p/>Now, when you add

in the fact that folks' images are being ripped off from this site....I'm just saying....<p/><p/>Got a problem?

Wipe my account out.

Brad;<p/>It sounds like you want to rob a train filled with film and then recover the silver. No, no, no! Rob the train for the diesel fuel, copper, iron/steel, and electronics. Much more profitable. <p/><p/>This is my facetious answer to a question that makes no sense to me. But keep in mind that I'm stewpid.

Words and images. It wouldn't surprise me if one of Carlin's routines inspired a photographer in a few of his images. Right now, the first one that comes to mind is his: shell shock -> battle fatigue -> post traumatic stress disorder - routine. Patton slapping one of those folks and calling him a coward. Our current administration's ban on photographs of soldiers coming back in coffins. Just saying.

Kodak designed the Portra films with scanning in mind. <p/>I have scanned Portra VC and I find it absolutely

beautiful.<div></div>

As a general statement regarding all of your equipment needs, shop around in non-photo stores and places. A

thermometer is a thermometer - just get one that's accurate within a half of a degree. I bought a safelight bulb

and then built my own safelight from parts from Home Depot. Black-out plastic - check the landscaping stores.

Stirrers - the same thing is in my chef section on my supermarket. Distilled water - check the "Store Brand

Drinking Water" many times it's filtered and reverse osmosised. Just as good as distilled: maybe even better. By

the way, unless you're stuck with pond water, I don't see the need for distilled water. <p/>As soon as you

label something "photographic", the mark-up doubles -at least (the same goes for aquarium and aviation). It's

the same for websites. I see photography websites charging at least 3x as much as for their services as other

websites. A shopping cart is a shopping cart.

Look at any advertisement by Nikon or Canon. Nikon's "Nothing scares a Nikon Pro" is one of the most hokey

advertisements I've ever seen. Or the Canon ads with the photos of the "pros" on the sidelines at football games.

I mean please! As far as I can see with Canon's and Nikon's advertisements, photography is a consumer driven

business. <p/>When I buy equipment for my profession (which is irrelevant ), I look at specs, price, service, and

other benchmarks. I could not care less what the "pros" are doing or what the advertisements say.<p/>If I were

the business adviser for someone getting into the photography business, I would advise them to go with Pentax or

4/3rds for their equipment because it makes better financial sense: they're a great value, i.e. biggest bang for

the buck. I haven't seen any compelling business reasons to buy Nikon or Canon. In this day and age, there is no

reason to buy Hasselblad and Rollei. Mamiya, on the other hand, is becoming a pretty good value. <p/>Oh, what's

professional photo equipment? It's equipment you need to make an income. My P&S is professional equipment if I

make money off of it.

John Kelly:<p/>You proved your point back when you posted "Napalm Girl". I thought that was the perfect example of an image changing the world.

Ok, I'll chime in. <p/>Yes, I love the gear. I love playing with equipment: new and old. New: Mark III Ds Full

frame: Baby! (I fantasize about it when I'm making love to my wife. Shh! Don't tell her! ) None of that wimpy 12

MP Nikon junk!.<br/> Old(ish) 8x10 view camera!<p/>I've been like this since the 70's. I was the same way when I

was guitar player: gimme the Strat or the Le Paul and every stinken electronic effect made! <p/>Now, ask me when

I have the most fun in photography. Ok, it's when I'm shooting with my P&S camera that I got for $99 on clearance

from OfficeMax. Sure, it's easily confused when: focusing, exposure, on a cloudy day the white balance goes

screwy and there's no way that I can see to adjust it, only a 3x optical zoom, etc... But it sure can be fun! And

besides, I can't afford anything better. <p/>And then there's my 35mm Ricoh from the 70's. Sometimes I enjoy it,

but I'll leave the reasons why I'm taking it out less and less alone.<p/>In a nutshell, what's it to you or

anyone else if I get off on the equipment?

I love my P&S too (A Kodak I got on clearance at an office supply store) - mostly. When I'm out and about shooting nature or children after their nap, then I have a real hard time with the speed of the thing. The focusing and exposure get easily confused - that's when I wish for manual controls.

That was funny! Thanks! Doesn't apply to me though!<p/>I have to go shopping now and I'm going to drool over the full frame 1Ds Mark III - you know the 22 Megapixel one NOT the 10 megapixel! Or maybe the 33 Megapixel Hass.

I'd just like to say that I find it quite disturbing when I read in the news folks being arrested and spending tens of thousands of dollars proving their innocence of child pornography for taking pictures of their kids in the bathtub.<p/>Regards to whether a photo is pornography if it is considered to be arousing ...considering what many folks and their particular tastes or fetishes are, any body part could be considered "obscene". Would a photo of a child showing a bare foot be considered child pornography if someone with a foot fetish were looking at it?<p/>Just pointing these things out because what constitutes pornography is not as cut and dry as many folks would have it.<p/>A great film about art, Girl with a Pearl, deals with this very thing. The painting of the girl with a pearl earing was consider obscene; at least in the movie. I don't know enough about art history to know if that was historically accurate.

Josh;

<p/>Speaking of Adorama. Next time you shop for camera equipment. Go to Adorama's website and get the price. Then go to Amazon. Adorama, most of the time, knocks off quite a bit when selling via Amazon. <p/>Just a little savings for you folks here on Photo.net.

Folks;<p/>All of you are confusing Amazon with the third party sellers that they host. <b>If you do not see "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." you are dealing with a third party seller and as far as Amazon's great service is concerned, all bets are off. </b>They will not back you up. They will refer you to the third party seller.<p/>Personally, I think Amazon's decision to host third party sellers is a mistake and it's ruining their reputation.

OK,:<p/>Stephen and Rhys both have excellent points. Some questions:<p/>Did you in fact buy from Amazon directly? In other words, when you purchased the items it said, "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com."? If not follow Stephen's advice.<p/>If Amazon or the real seller won't work with you, then follow Rhys' advice - the chargeback. Reason: "Items were not received". <p/>When shipping anything, it's the seller's/shipper's responsibility to get it to you. I've had a problem with Amazon myself and we eventually straightened it out. <p/>I know it's a real pain! But try to work it out with the seller first. I mean really work it out and KEEP A PAPER TRAIL! Phone calls are NOT enough! OK?<p/>Then, when you have to bring out the big guns: charge backs, complaints to law enforcement, etc... you have a documented reason. I've done this with a couple of folks on very rare occasions, and with my paper trail, folks behave. No lawsuits necessary and no lawyers.

<i>A word of caution about Flash, though. Too much will really turn some people off. If I have to sit through any sort of flash animation before I get to the meat of a web site, I get really irritated and usually just leave. Flash slide shows where dozens of images are loaded and my ability to navigate how and when I want is also obnoxious.</i><p/> That is soooo true. I second that! I curse the day that Flash came into existence.<p/>Believe it or not, there are quite a few folks still on dial-up. Keep the site simple and easily navigable. It'll make it easier to build and it will not distract from your <i>real</i> creative work: your photography.

If I may be devil's advocate here: Why?!? Canon / Nikon dealers are a dime a dozen.<p/>There are two questions to ask whenever starting any business:<ol><li/>What's special about my business?<li/>and So what!?! (explain why folks will shop with you. And if you say I'll sell cheaper. There is <i>always</i> someone that can sell cheaper than you. <b>Never</b> compete on price.)</ol>

A lab tech can answer your question. Regarding your crackly rewinding problem: there should be a release button somewhere that will allow the take up spool to spin freely so that it won't tear the films perforations. Take a look at the manual for your camera.

<a href=http://www.shutterbug.net/equipmentreviews/film_darkroom_gear/0208efkeir/index.html>A good article on IR 820 (Efke) film</a> - in case you missed the link in my previous post. <p/>I didn't mark it well.

Just a question...but don't you need a filter to shoot IR film? If I am remembering correctly, it's some sort of red filter - <a href=http://www.shutterbug.net/equipmentreviews/film_darkroom_gear/0208efkeir/index.html>#092</a>. Would that give you ugly results?<p/>I've never shot IR film. After reading an article about the Efke stuff in Shutterbug a couple of months back, I got intimidated and forgot about it. I also concede that it's not the SFX; which, if I understand correctly, isn't a true IR film - it overlaps the IR and the visible red spectrum. <p/>Anyone? Do I have this right?

Oh, and if you buy a used camera, that'll change the numbers a bit; but not the economics.

Manu;<p/>Ricoh GR Digital2 goes for about $600 at the NY mail order places. <p/>You can get a Vivitar V3800N SLR Multi Exposure Camera w/28-70 3.4-4.8 macro zoom lens for about $160.00 - same place. It was the Pentax K-1000. Pentax sold their film line to Vivitar years ago.<p/>That's a price difference of $440.00 (all US $).A typical lab that still does B&W processing will charge $21 for a 36 exposure roll of B&W film with prints. B&W film runs anywhere from $2 - $6 per roll - roughly. So, let's go cheap and say it's $23/roll. $440/23= 19/rolls of film with the price difference between your choice of digital camera and my choice of film camera. If you want to process yourself; darkroom equipment goes for 10 cents on the dollar. Yo can rigg up your darkroom for less than a $100 not including paper and chemicals. To process and print a 36 exposure roll of film is about $12 - using Ilford or Foma paper. If you use the cheap stuff you can bring it down to around half that using Arista.EDU paper. <p/>So, $440-100 = $340. $340/$6=56 rolls you can process with the price difference between the Ricoh and the Vivitar.<p/>Your numbers may be different where you live, but it'll give you an idea of costing it out.

Thanks guys. Flexicolor fixer ...hmmmm.<p/>BTW, I mixed a fresh batch of Kodafix @ 1:3 for the above example.

Here's some other feedback.<p/>ethical: Take how much you want to make a year, divide by the number of hours you'll actually shoot per year. Add in annual overhead dividing by number of hours you'll shoot per year. So, if you'll shoot one hour a year, your overhead is $100,000 and you'll like to earn $100,000 per year, you need to charge $200,000 / per hour. (Just to make the numbers easy.) Adjust the hourly rate or fee to be marketable. In other words, of you're swamped with business, that means you need to raise your rate; not enough business, then you need to lower your rate. <p/>Now, I know someone is going to post that your "talent" counts too. Of course it does and it''ll reflect in the amount of business you get. If you're cheap enough, you'll get business. It just means if you're horrible, you'll have to do it for free.<p/>Unethical: Call your competitors posing as a potential customer and ask how much they'll charge. <p/>

I was reading the TMAX 400 - 2TMY literature and Kodak recommends Kodak Rapid

Fixer. I've used Kodafix with it and it took about 7 minutes to completely clear

the film. <p/>My question to you guys: What's your opinion of Kodak's

recommendation? <p/>And have any of you had problems with Kodafix?

You have the glass. I would go with the 5D and get a factory refurb to save money.