will_jefferson

<p>Just wanted to add my experience to this old thread.<br>

I purchased a 21mm Zeiss finder and used it for about a week before I returned it (originally a used item...). The reason why was the poor eyepoint, which required me to really squish my face against the camera. The plastic VC finder that came with my 21MM COLOR SKOPAR was better in this regard because it allowed a more comfortable viewing distance. I read many reports of people praising the Zeiss finder, so I was surprised to find it so uncomfortable to use.<br>

I ended up getting a nice clean LEICA 12002 and I really like it. I like it a lot better than the VC and the Zeiss finders. It is compact, sturdy, and offers generous eyepoint allowing comfortable viewing. I also like that it doesn't have the offset foot that my VC finder has because the camera I use it with has the accessory shoe centered on the lens axis. Also I don't care that the LEICA finder lacks the contrast the other finders have. I just use it to compose.<br>

In regards to accuracy, the field of view seems pretty much the same as my 21MM COLOR SKOPAR. As long as I stay conscious of parallax error, I have no issues with framing accuracy.<br>

Happy Shooting!</p>

<p>Yes, doing the unclog uses a fair amount of ink, and costs money, and Robin is right, my results may not be particularly stunning. However, reading reports of people who are afraid to let their printer sit a week or two for fear of it getting clogged nozzles might be able to see this and rest easier. Time will tell how well my PX-5600 holds up.<br>

I am still impressed that my printer has held up through all my moving, and that it was able to rectify its clogged nozzle though. I wonder how well this feature works on other pigment ink printers?</p>

<p>Hello, I wanted to share as a testament to Epson printers the experience I had with mine recently. I have a PX-5600 (R2880) which has sat unused for about a year. Not only was it unused, but had been shipped by freight from Japan to Seattle, then checked on a plane from Seattle to Honolulu, drug around the airport and finally brought to my residence.<br>

When I finally plugged it in again it showed low ink so I had to replace a few cartridges (you gotta cut off some plastic stubs to get American cartridges to work on a Japanese machine), and then it had some plugged up nozzles. At this point I was kind of worried that shipping this thing here and there, and letting it go unused for so long may have been a bigger hassle than it was worth. But after running the 'auto head cleaning' function three times, the clogs are gone and the printer is ready to print again. Yay!<br>

Here are the test prints:<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/16912652-lg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="843" /><br>

The software actually directed me to replace the ink cartridge with a fresh one and proceed to manual nozzle cleaning after the first test print was done, but instead I put in a new piece of paper and ran the auto cleaning again, which came up daisies the second time. I ran it a third time just to be sure.<br>

When I stopped using this printer a year ago, I didn't do anything special to it. And when I shipped it all over hell and back, I just left it in its original box.<br>

After this experience with the Epson, I would say they did a damn good job building this machine!</p>

<p>Great Camera! FYI, the goggled 35's focus down to about 65cm on the M3. I use a SUMMARON 2.8 on mine, which has been great!</p>

<p>yeah, you will waste a lot of time (but by all means, go ahead! ; ) trying all the profile options and what-not for scanning color film. I agree with others here that the best approach is to scan your film using auto color/contrast, and then adjust in photoshop. One thing to watch out for is that your scanner may tend to want to clip the highlights more than you want, so bumping up the latitude a little in your scan software is a good idea sometimes. Scan in 48 bit color for better post-scan editing latitude. Also, you can adjust each of your RGB channels as well as global contrast all within the curves window, so its worth your time to learn how to do it all there...<br>

just my 2¢</p>

<p>Thanks for all your responses! Haha, ask the same question to 5 people and get 5 different answers! Glad to see everyone is finding their own solutions for this...</p>

<p>Anybody have a consistent technique for scanning color negs? I have an Epson V600 and use both epson scan as well as Silverfast.<br>

It seems that with enough tweeking, I can usually get close to what I want, but I have yet to find a systematic approach to getting consistent color from frame to frame.<br>

I also tried Mark Segal's technique (outlined on LuLa) of obtaining the L*a*b* value of the orange mask, and then de-masking the positive scan in photoshop with mixed results.<br>

If you have found a good way to get good looking scans consitantly from your color negs could you share it here please!</p>

<p>woah! those are big files! I'm still shooting a 6mp Pentax...<br>

Isn't it because the pixels that record darker tonal values contain less information? Do the smaller file size images contain more dark areas?</p>

<p>You don’t have to do anything complicated; just keep that little area on the back of the glass clear. The Epson service guy told me that if there is some larger particles of dust or dirt in that little space they will be recorded during calibration and result in a streak as the sensor moves across the film...</p>

<p>Apparently the scanner performs some kind of calibration at the rear edge of the glass before the scan. If there is anything in that area that interferes with the calibration such as dirt or film holder, then you will get streaks on your scan...<br>

For resolution, just scan for your output. You can also look at the Silverfast suite to make 64bit master scans, and then reprocess them according to how you want to use them...</p>

<p>Bounce, swivel and more power doesn't matter because on camera flash is lame. The only thing it is good for is a little fill flash, in which case you don't want a lot of power anyway...<br>

The AF200T is great because it is cheap (when you can find them), and its super simple to adjust your ratio with the 1/2, 1/4, 1/8-power manual settings for when you are holding it off to the left with your free hand...the 280 doesn't have those settings...</p>

<p>AF200T is Pentax's best flash</p>

<p>I see. Yeah I looked into the norton ring phenomena a little, but still a little confused about what exactly is causing it. So far I am using the stock carrier in my V600 and scanning mostly ektar 100 roll film, and have been getting the occasional ring with that set up...<br>

Anyway the gains from wet mounting even with the level of scanner that I have seem to be worth while, so I want to give it a go.<br>

Thanks for your input!</p>

<p>Peter, I checked out your blog post about the wet mount. That is great and I want to build one for my V600<br>

I am wondering if its better to use ANR glass with your design?</p>