richard_fateman

For much less money consider getting a camera like a Century Graflex with a 6X9 cm negative, roll-film back, and suitable lens. You can get the effect of the shift lens by just taking a photo with the subject in the top 6X6 cm of the 6X9 field!

 

Not as sharp as a Rollei, but total investment could be under $300.

Probably relevant in your consideration is the consideration of "instant return" mirrors. No SLR will allow you to see the image at the exact moment of the exposure, but certain cameras will allow you to see it just before and after (e.g. contax, Rollei 6000, Hasselblad ELX) and so you will have a much better notion of whether you have captured a fleeting expression or not. Not a perfect solution, but then you are not asking about digital or polaroid photos.

Other cameras that require you to wind the film and reset the mirror give you a really bad setup: you can't see the moment-after the decisive moment, and worse, if your camera or you give visible or aural hints about the shutter, you may affect the shutter.

 

So if decisive moments count, think about the larger context too.

My 2 cents..

RJF

"fast operation" and "medium format" don't usually go together. Typically you can only take 12 photos (of 6x6) or fewer (6x7), before you have to reload film.

 

An older Rollei (e.g. 6006 or 6003) might suit your price range.

A spot on the surface of the lens, or an interior surface of the lens, or a spot (bubble) inside one of the lens elements, would not appear as a spot on the image. Dust in the optics can cause softening of the image or glare, but unless it is pretty extreme, might be hard to notice.

 

Dust on the mirror or screen will not affect the film image at all.

 

The spotting you are doing is to remove dust on the film that probably got there from your handling after the film was exposed.

 

Good luck in becoming comfortable with your lens, and try not to obsess about the occasional isolated spot in the optics.

RJF

You don't say why you want to read such low light levels, but you should beware that long exposures on film suffer from a non-linear response, and thus a meter reading is not, by itself, going to tell you how to set a camera exposure.

If the rangefinder is working, the double images should converge to a single image on object that are in focus. I suspect that the other markers you are talking about are some kind of parallax indicator. That is, just because you see something in the viewfinder does not mean it will be on the film: if you are too close to the subject, the view from the camera lens and the viewfinder are more significant.

 

I do not have a Mamiya Press 23, so these comments may be off.

according to the chart here http://members.iinet.net.au/~fotoplot/accbatcc.htm

you see the silver oxide battery is at one voltage for the first 20% of its life (maybe 1.65v) then drops so that between 30-90% it is at 1.55v, then drops off to 1.2v, (then 0)

 

The mercury cell is pretty much constant from 5% to 80% at 1.3v or so.

NiCad is even flatter, at 1.2v.

 

There are other characteristics of batteries that matter in applications, but if finding most-constant-voltage (under very low drain) is the requirement, then silver is not as good as mercury, even if the voltage is dropped slightly. If the circuitry in the meter or other device makes the exactness and the constantness of the battery voltage irrelevant, that would be more of a comfort.

 

(Sorry to pain you!)

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_battery

 

or google for mercury battery constant voltage. An alkaline battery's voltage varies too much. A silver battery varies less than alkaline, more than mercury, and it is (as UG above points out) not the right voltage, quite.

Good luck.

Sorry to not answer your question directly, but your premise sounds fishy. Your BW negatives are more "archival" than the scans you will make of them.

The digital data on a CD or DVD will not last as long, and if you try to squeeze the most bits out of each negative, you will have to store something like .5 gigabytes each. So each 12 exposure roll translates to a few DVDs. The only way to make archival digital stuff is to re-copy your collection to new-technology media every 5-10 years.

 

 

More plausible is a low-res scan "proofsheet" for indexing your negatives. Later if you want to print them you go back to the negative and scan again.

 

Doug Fisher's scanning templates work, pretty much, but are tedious and do not guard against Newton rings. These can be subtle enough that you would not notice until you look at the printout.

 

Have fun, and good luck

The simple answer is: don't do it on one piece of film. Make two separate exposures and print them together. (or merge them in a computer).

 

If you insist on using one piece of film, a white background will not work because the white exposure will wash out any additional image you put on the same place on the film. At best you will get two ghostly images.

 

Using a card to mask off half the image might work, if you don't mind a blurry line in the middle.

Maybe your focus screen is upside down.

The "acumatte screen" hypothesis is irrelevant since the Rollei meter is on the face of the camera, and has nothing to do with the screen.

 

You can change the zero-point of the meter, but you are probably going to be disappointed. The 1-stop-off measurement you observe is probably at one point. So your "sunny-16" becomes "sunny-11". You are assuming the meter response is linear, and that it will be 1-stop-off at low light levels. Chances are remote that this is true. Old meters typically do not retain linearity.

 

On top of that, the meter would generally be a disappointment even if it worked as good as new. You should look into getting a decent hand-held meter that you can point in the right direction.

 

Enjoy your new camera.

RJF

Why don't you look at Rollei SLRs? There are bargains to be had here, with 6008i, 6008, 6003, 6006.

 

They have metering, instant-return mirrors...

The value of an (old) Rollei depends substantially on its condition. Two 2.8F Rolleis can be fairly priced at $100 (beaten up) to $1000 (mint).

 

Don't expect any selenium meter attached to a Rollei to be at all useful in low light, exactly when you would want it to work. A separate modern meter is much preferable.

 

Good luck and have fun!

The standard factory installed WLF on my 6008I has a lens marked -0.5.

The manual says there are correction magnifiers from +2.5 to -4.5 available, "matching your distance-glass prescription".

 

Good luck with your new camera.

The fuse is not in the charging circuit. Your problem will not be affected by changing the fuse. You can perhaps rehabilitate your battery by discharging and recharging it. Look up the material on the MAHA charger..

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00El8u&tag=

You might try this, especially since it is quick and uses up no film at all. Set your camera on a tripod and focus on something at a particular distance (close, mid...). Mark the focus on the focus scale with a small piece of tape. UNfocus, then focus again, approaching from the opposite direction (e.g. from infinity or from close distance). See if you have focused at the same distance based on the scale. You will probably find that each time you get a slightly different setting. A finer ground glass [less Fresnel effect] may reduce the variance of focus, the downside being a dimmer image especially toward the edge of the screen.

 

Assuming you have now evidence to reassess your ability to focus exactly, figure out what you can do to home in on a more precise focus point.

 

Oh, and all those other comments-- yeah, and this one too, are assuming your hypothesis that your problem is lens-specific and time dependent-- is wrong. Sorry about that.

If you buy an SLR and you use it for taking a portrait, you will not know if the subject closed his/her eyes when the shutter was open.

With a Hasselblad, the mirror doesn't return until after you wind the film.

 

There are other medium format SLRs to consider, as well as rangefinder cameras. If you have a 35mm SLR, I think that the change for a twin lens reflex will be educational in many ways, and probably less expensive for a working setup.

This is supposed to be a pretty good lens. Possibly not quite as good (certainly less expensive) than the Zeiss or Schneider 80mm.

 

There is also a less expensive EL version of the lens which has a 67mm front filter size rather than bayonet VI, probably a plus.

 

I think there is no difference in the information exchanged between lens and body for any of the lenses unless you get a PQ or PQS lens. If you are happy with aperture priority or full automatic, that's what you'll get. If you want shutter priority, you need a PQ/S.

 

In other words, it's ok to buy the Rolleigon.

The camera has been out of production for some time. The folding mechanism and the shutter are elaborate, and cameras with original bellows may not be light-tight any more. The special lens hood is hard to find or expensive, and there is no convenient way of mounting filters. Even the lens hood is not convenient since it must be removed before closing the camera.

 

Nevertheless it can take excellent pictures, and is compact and good for travel. Just be careful and always wind it and set focus to infinity before closing it. And hope that the previous owner was careful with it, too.

PRobably folly. At least when I tried it, I got the bellows on, but the shutter interlock or something related to it stopped working reliably, and so I had to send to someone who worked on Fuji cameras.

In case you are interested, the first step is to remove the lens mount from the rotating standard by removing the two large screws whose heads have two pin-holes for gripping. You then have access to all the screws holding the bellows in place, working from inside the camera. At least that's what I recall.

RJF

correction... 80/2.0 heavier than the 80/2.8...

RJF

In case you hadn't realized this, the fast lenses are probably quite

heavy. I tried checking some numbers on the internet, but there

are some contradictory data (grams vs. ounces) at B&H. I believe that the 80/2.0 lens may be 2 pounds heavier than the 80/2.0. This is large enough that it can change the camera balance.

In Moab, I have had 120 film scratched, dented and torn by Action Photo.

Apparently other people, too. I got a refund, but that hardly

made up for the exasperation of seeing a few nice shots ruined.

Its proximity to Canyonlands and Arches makes it especially sad.

RJF

Filter factors for black and white film vary somewhat depending on the particular sensitivity curves for the film, (as well as the light, and the effect that you have in mind). Look at the film information sheet for your particular film to get a more accurate estimation of filter factors than those posted here. They are NOT all the same.