jim_service

<p>I used to clean slides often, but it was a long time ago. As Gerry said, slide film is pretty robust.<br> For a really dirty slide, the first thing I would do is to give it a good brush off. I used a large camel hair or Japanese writing brush. Then for the crap that brushing wouldn't remove, I would remove the film from the frame and hold it by one corner under running water, gently (gently!) wiping it between my (clean) fingers. Set it aside to dry and remount it in a replacement frame.<br> For those who are freaking out about using water and fingers, here's the deal... yes, water will soften the emulsion, but it takes some time, maybe 3 or 4 minutes, before any handling would leave some damage, while the wiping procedure I used is done in 15 seconds.<br> I tried alcohol, but it softened the emulsion almost immediately.<br> As someone who has slides going back to the 50's, I've done this literally hundreds of times.</p>

<p>So then, the next technological hurdle is commensurate stabilization.</p>

<p>Curious.. the specs say "full frame" yet the 2.26 Mega pixels is suspiciously close to the 2.073 Mega pixels necessary for 1920x1080. Maybe their "full frame" is not 24x36 mm.<br /> So, IF it is a video frame, I think they missed the boat by not going 4K. Best wait for Ver. II.<br /> But just think of the beautiful night time lapse videos we'll be seeing.</p>

<p>How did she go wrong?<br> Let me count the ways..</p>

<p>I have a Minolta scanner, but since it's so complicated getting a driver for Windows 7, I've been using my old (Pentax screw mount) Prinz slide duplicator. I see they are selling for less than $20 on eBay.</p>

<p>In response to the original question, far/near sightedness will not result in far/"close" focusing due to the lack of corrective eyewear/diopter. This is because you are not looking through the lens, you are looking AT the focusing screen. <br> Your fuzzy* eyesight gives you a blurred view of the focusing screen and makes it difficult to find that point of max sharpness, and, if not right on, a 50-50 chance of being too close or too far no matter whether you are near or far sighted.<br> <br />*technical term</p>

<p>I am troubled that this law creates "classes" of people observing police activity, those who have a camera and those who don't. A photographer is no more likely or capable of "interfering" than anyone else.<br> It is obviously intended to inhibit the recording of police activity by placing you at the back of the crowd, or else it would also include women carrying purses and people with heavy shoes.<br> And if people started showing up with longer lenses, they would just amend the law to seventy five or a hundred feet.<br> It isn't about impeding, it's about recording.</p>

<p>I don't know what it means, but I do know that I want it, especially if I can camp out overnight at the store. And it goes without saying, that it's overpriced.</p>

<p>Jeff - I saw that sunset a few days ago from my home out near Stonestown, but, alas, no camera at hand. Amazing. I dragged my neighbors out of their cocoons to see it.<br> Attached: the old Bay Bridge east span being taken apart.</p><div></div>

<p>Though I think the Pentax Spotmatic shows clean, compact functionality, my vote would go to the Hasselblad Flexbody.</p>

<p>Here's my opinion..<br> Back in the late '60's the first quality low cost TTL SLR's came out and the amateurs snapped them up. But within a couple years every swinger in a leisure suit had one because, I suppose, they were "supposed to". A fad. They had one lens for it, a 55mm f1.4, and made 3x5 snapshots. They were Instamatic people to the bone and never learned how to use the camera beyond some basic auto mode. Inevitably the fad died out.<br> The same thing happened when DSLR's came out, got better and got cheaper. The fad happened again and got extended by the excitement over the rapid advances. Now the fad is slowing down.<br> The point I'm making is that the sales figures never should have been that high to begin with, that camera execs know that most of the cameras were bought as a fashion statement, that these fads do not last, and have in place the financial plans to deal with its demise.<br> 'Ya think?</p>

<p>Wow! Just in the nick of time! Just last week my doctor told me that my behind was falling. Does this come with one of those little tabletop tripods? Or a digital lens cloth?</p>

<p>Try this again<br> Here's a crop of the above full frame (stuck into the 700 px max).</p><div></div>

<p>If I were in Richards place, the question would not be, "Is the Tamron just as good?", but "Is the Sigma worth almost twice the price?" What does that extra $800 get you? Do you need it?<br> <br />Disclaimer: I have the Tamron. It's VR seems to do fine with panning.</p><div></div>

<p>Might it be that the word "exposure" is understood, and that the full expression of the term would be "post exposure processing"?</p>

<p>I've had some success by putting the subject in the freezer for a while. Works for small children, pets and insects.</p>

<p>A while back I needed to recover images from an erased card and the good people here recommended pci and recuva. Pci had a glitchy install and was abandoned for recuva, which performed flawlessly. Both were free, as I recall.</p>

<p>Taken a few weeks back at the Alabama Hills. Mt. Whitney in the background.</p><div></div>

<p>I just did something like this last week. I used an old (old) Prinz slide duplicator (with a Pentax thread mount to Canon EOS adapter) to copy some old negatives using a Canon 5D2. Once opened up in PS, I inverted the colors and then went through various adjustments to correct for the contrast mask. Though it was all the same type of film, the adjustments for the contrast mask, while similar, had to be done individually. Twenty images was a tedious process and I wouldn't want to think about doing 450.<br> I cannot think of how a commercial outfit could do a good job for a buck apiece. I would send them a few at first to see how they do.</p>

<p>Some Fall colors from the West Coast. A grove by June Lake after the sun went over the rim.</p><div></div>

<p>In the car shots, I believe the car was selected, the selection was inverted and the background and foreground were then treated in ps to get your look.. a little de-saturation, a little blur, maybe brightness contrast down a tad, a little warming, whatever. Deselect and a little vignette and Bob's your uncle.<br> I think the liquor ad shot was mostly done with studio lighting.</p>

<p>Great shots of the city I remember from my youth. I used to fish off the pier in Fisherman's Wharf. Since shiners weren't good for anything, we used to toss them out of the streetcar coming back through the Twin Peaks Tunnel.</p>

<p>It took me a while to learn NOT to use the LCD image to judge exposure. Use the histogram.</p>

<p>"Much worse however that people all too often think it is about lenses, and not formats."<br> So, are you proposing that instead of having one camera and a bunch of lenses, one should have one lens and a bunch of different format cameras??<br> Note: This is a "humorous" response and not to be taken seriously.</p>

<p>"What are the limits to 'enhancing' a landscape?"<br> Getting arrested.</p>