dave_cheney

I had one, loved it, but sold it. It's a brick of a camera and I found the 1/250th of a second top speed very limiting. Mine was starting to develope a dodgy shutter release so I sent it to the great auction house in the sky.

 

The lens is the sharpest that I have ever owned, but for me, if the camera can't intergrate with me and my shooting style then it doesn't matter if it can resolve the fleas on a dogs back.

 

Dave

What's one mans unflattering is sometimes another "OHMYGODTHATSAMAZINGRESOLUTION!"

 

Dave

From the samples, IMHO, I think we are looking at a KD-5 type pocket point and shoot. It's big claim to fame might be that it has a foven x3 type sensor as the first picture seams to be clear of baeyer errors but the second one displays horrible abberations which makes me think its another tiny sensor requiring a <10mm lens.

 

Dave

What a load off guff!

 

My Nikon's, Fuji's, RB's and Yashica's have all made as many trips in airplanes as I have. Probably more as all of them are 2nd hand.

 

I think the problem would either be a serious case of thumb fingerednes from Felix or more related to the condition to which they are stored.

 

If M's can't take a trip in a plane what about the continued thumping up and down in your camera bag when you are trudging around with them on your back?

 

To get back on track. Felix? What is the history of these cameras? How old are they? Can you may friends cameras jam when using them? Are you sure you are not winding while holding the shutter release?

 

Dave

I enjoy Rei's work and his devotion to the traditional craft of photography. I agree that some of Rei's stuff could be classes as snapshot, but there are other examples of excellent technique, both with the camera and in the darkroom later. In short, put up or shut up.

I have to agree with Scott, I'm a rodinal devotee and use it for everything that I can (hint, tri-x, rodinal 1:50, 18.5 mints, 20c - ASA 1600) I've tried 1:100 and while this was the sharpest Tri-x 400 negative I ever saw (I could make out the ribbing in the fabric of the subjects jeans) it was a bit blah. For my money rodinal 1:50 is the way to go

 

For my money - less agitation is generally preferable to more, it reduces excessive contrast and increases the compensation effect. I have read in other threads that gentle agitiation will produce a better negative that rough aggitation. Think of the poor silver grains!

 

Dave

Its a great bag - SLR stuff will fit but the critical dimention for me is the length of the lens, a prime will normally fit so long as you don't keep anything in the left hand pocket, a large L zoom will probably make thigns too tight.

 

I normally kit my out with an F series body, with a 50/35/24 mounted and a 105 lens in the padded colum and a flash beside that.

 

Probably one of the best bags every made.

 

Dave

yep - its a frontier print all right, grainy, pale faces, poor shadow detail.

 

Seroiusly, i know the lad was wearing sunnies, but shading him with a cloth or a large sheet from outside the frame would have reduced the scene contrast and given the printer at least something to work with (that is unless he/she wasn't off drinking coffee while still wearing the cotton gloves -- you know who you are Ted's employee!)

 

Also, was a 90 really necessarily needed on this shot? From the angle and the loose crop it could easily be a 50 or even a 35 at very close focus.

 

Dave

I have to say that I prefer Tri-x @ 1600 over Neopan at the same ASA. Neopan is slightly tighter in the grain but its 0 lattitude (as can be seen in the image posted above) means that it lacks shadow detail and can be trickier than slide in high contrast situations.

 

I prefer Tri-x @ 1600, rodinal 1:50, 18.5 mins, 20c. YMMV

 

Dave

Hi,

 

I think it was my comment in a previous Noct forum that may have been the cause of this thread. From my own experience I have found that in camera meters generally UNDER expose by around a stop under strong tungsten light. Where is this light mostly found? in dim indoor scenes lit by normal 240 (115v) lamps.

 

So, does Tri-X (or any film) loose responsiveness under tungsten light? I would imagine so, as Cosmos said above the EI of any film under tungsten appears to loose 2/3rds of a stop. Why do Kodak's Tungsten balanced films have ASA's of 160 etc?

 

I would argue that a slight loss in film speed coupled with a more critial expsure error from the in camera meter yealds a less than optimal negative.

 

And to those who say a stop here or there doesn't matter I wish it were true. Maybe with conventional darkroom processes you have the luxury of just printing a bit longer to place the midtones where you would like, but for those of us who are left with digital scanners, critial exposure and development are very imporatant lest we be lost in the digital shadow noise (gets down from soap box)

 

Dave

gil, don't forget, under tungsten light tri-x drops to only ASA200, so you have to add extra compensation on top of the compensation for backlighting etc.

 

i would recommend against using any kind of dust removal in PS, its all basically a controlled gassiuan blur which robs the image of their sharpness. I'm not sure I know PS elements but if it has the rubber stamp tool you can dust spot your images quite easily with that (even if time consuming)

 

my practice for scanning is to develop my film, hang them in the shower with a heater on in the room to speed up drying. As soon as they are dry, i cut them and store them in neg folders. I find that one or two scans is the best I can do before they pick up serious dust so I try to scan all the good ones in one pass then I archive the negs for the day I get a real dark room (or nikon creates Digital ICE that works with silver backed film)

 

cheers

 

dave

Vic,

 

I have to disagree with you about the GMC grip on an F2, for me (with moderate hands) I found the F2 to heavy to hold comfortably against my palm with just the pressure of my fingers. I found the grip to give it the helf in my palm, more like my favorite, the F4.

 

just my $0.02 AUD

 

Cheers

 

Dave

I agree, i wouls suspect something either deep in the lens, close to the apature blades or on the rear element. Also, it might be worth checking the inside of your M6 with the door open and the lens off to make sure there are no fly away pieces of dust caught in the baffles around the shutter, also test this with the shutter open on B to see if the dust is not caught BETWEEN the shutter curtains.

 

Dave

I would strongly recommend using a conventional grain film, notably Tri-x for push processing, I reguarly shoot Tri-x in Rodinal 1:50, 20c, 18.5 mins and the results (to my eye are wonderful), gritty, strong tonality, with that classic rodinal punch.<div></div>

Hmmm -- i've seen a simlary effect pushing Tri-x in straight D76, the highlights were so over developed (anti-compensation development anyone?) that it spread to nearby areas of the neg - most strange. Oddly the rest of the neg, the other zones were fine, it just affected the strong VIII and IX zones.

 

I'd look at you developer and/or technique.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Jay,

 

Is that DD-X you are refering too? I've long since given up on being able to process Delta3200 myself as I never get close to a well developed Neg, regardless of developer or time, oddly this occures with most Ilford Delta * films. Quite annoying as I can normally do very well with most conventional grain flims.

 

Can you tell me your secret?

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Elliot,

 

Nikon F, F2, F3, F4, F5 all show 100% of the image area in VF. If you're scanning your negative the scanner would probably be able to resolve past the edge of an unmounted slide or negative.

 

In 35mm you need all the film area you can ...

 

Cheers

 

Dave

You'll also see this design on most of Nikon's unit focus Macro lenses, like the 50/2.8 Macro and probably the AF versions (although I can't check it right now). Later Macro lenses that focus to 1:1 with extension tubes generally are telephoto designs so they do not have a large distance from the back of the last element to the lens mount/film plane.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Or I could run over it with a steam roller, common guys, I was being vaguely serious ... :)

 

Dave

Hi All,

 

I've just got a 2nd hand Fuji GW690 III RF from that auction site.

Its in very good condition with 260 on the clock. My first thoughts

from holding it is apart from the plastic nature of the body (which I

expected - given its weight I'm glad its not metal), is the noise the

shutter release makes, a noisy pliiiiiiiing, which I have read is part

of the exposure counter mechanism.

 

Without going into the rights and wrongs of disabeling the counter,

would anyone know if it is possible to disable the counter or dampen

the noise that it produces?

Hi Kelly,

 

Thanks for the link, but just to reitterate, my lens is the 50/1.2 Nikkor, not the 55.

 

Thanks for the suggestion above, I've checked the AI linkage and on my bodies the AI tab on the lens stays mated with the camera through the full travel of the camera.

 

I have seen it reported here

 

http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/lhhansen/photo/mcr.htm

 

That fast nikkors, ie 1.8, 1.4, 1.2 have a different placement of the AI coupling ridge to f2 and slower nikkors. Maybe this is why my lens causes the meter to underexpose.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Hi Connie,

 

I'm pretty sure that Nikkon did not make the 50/1.2 in a pre AI from. From this web page

 

http://www.cs.kau.se/~nicke/private/photo/misc/lensspec.html

 

I've seen that my lens is one of the early AI 50/1.2's

 

From that page there is a jpeg of a sample AI 50/1.2

 

http://home.aut.ac.nz/staff/rvink/ai5012.jpg

 

Which is identical to my lens and also bears a serial number before my lens.

 

Besides, if my lens was an AI conversion it would be using a factory AI ring (non factory conversions are easy to spot) so the AI poisition would be correct.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Hi Lex,

 

My lens is 183795 Nikkor 50/1.2. Although I can't prove it at the moment I do not think this lens is a pre Ai conversion. A lot of 55/1.2's were produced and converted to AI, but these are pretty easy to spot as they have the older style scholoped barrel. Mine (from a web page I once found) appears to be the second version of the AI series, which has the rubber focus ring.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Hi,

 

I have an interesting problem with my 50/1.2. On two camera body's

I have tried it on (F3 and F4) the lens seams to give 1 to 2 stop

under exposure. This has happened regardless of backlighting,

sidelighting or anything else that would fool a meter. Has anyone

experienced this before?

 

When I use an external meter the exposures are perfect so I am

assuming that there is some misalignment of the meter coupling pin.

 

I like using this lens, it has a great feel and the images are

superb, would you suggest anything besides altering the exposure

compensation to compensate for the lens. If so, does anyone have an

idea how much. I did read a while ago that lenses like the 50/1.2 and

1.4 have a slightly different AI cam which nobody is sure why.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Hi,

 

I've been considering getting a Fuji 690 rangefinder for a while

now. I've considered the old and new models (pulling about the same

money on the auction site) but am confused about the exposure counter

on the bottom of the camera. What does it count? The number of frames

on taken by the shutter, or the number of rolls put through the

camera?

 

Also, can somebody tell me where they put the fstop and shutter

speed dials on the GW690 III's? From all the pictures I have seen

they are not obvious on the lens or the body.

 

Cheers

 

Dave