sherman_peabody

February 6, 2012

Well, you could run the Canon flashes in manual mode rather than ETTL, so there wouldn't be any preflash to deal with. Then you could use optical slave triggers at about $10 each for the third-party flashes. But then you would have kinda wasted your money on those two expensive Canon flashes with ETTL.

Or, it's possible that something like a Yongnuo ETTL flash would deal with the preflashes properly. I just don't know about that, but someone here will. I guess I've just never understood the usefulness of ETTL in a studio situation where you can control and adjust the light. It seems like a big expense for something that isn't really needed. Of course, that could be because I've never had the luxury of using ETTL in those circumstances. All my flashes are dumb as dirt.

January 22, 2012

Matthias, the residue left behind by Eclipse is not the dirt picked up by the cleaning. If you put a drop of Eclipse on a perfectly clean mirror, it will leave a residue when it evaporates. Whatever the residue is - it's in the Eclipse fluid to start with.

I don't think "working wet" is the right way to go with Eclipse. The swab should just be damp. Two drops.

But with regard to the OP's question, I did a test. I put an Eclipse drop on a mirror, got the residue when it evaporated, then made up a swab with a Pec Pad, put two drops on that, and indeed it does re-dissolve and remove the original residue. You have to swipe it a couple times, and you can actually turn it over and swipe it a couple more times, but the residue is completely removed.

In my mind, the question arises whether it would be possible to distill a bottle of Eclipse liquid into an all-glass container, leaving behind whatever that residue is.

January 21, 2012

When I first received the Eclipse fluid, it tried putting a drop on a completely clean shaving mirror, and when it evaporated it left a residue behind. That was disturbing, and it's not clear why it happens. I thought Eclipse was supposed to be pure methanol, which shouldn't leave anything behind. Well, maybe over time it dissolves some of the plastic in the bottle. Methanol is pretty aggressive.

But then I tried making up a swab using a Pec Pad, put on two drops, and dragged it across the mirror surface. And that did not leave a residue. It looked like the swab left a very thin film of liquid on the glass, which immediately evaporated right behind the swab, leaving nothing behind.

So I suspect the key to success here is to maybe only use a couple drops. More is not better. But, shortly after getting this stuff, I traded to a new camera, so I've never actually used it to clean a sensor.

I would expect cleaning the sensor again, or possibly a third time, would remove what was left behind the first time. But you can experiment using a clean mirror, and see if it works.

December 20, 2011

I believe the Yongnuo RF-602, which is sold as a flash radio trigger, will also work as a remote shutter release, including half-press and full-press. About $30 on Ebay. 100 meters. But I'm not sure about the new RF-603.

December 11, 2011

I have my father's Medalist from 1944. It's version I, not II, so it doesn't have a flash sync. Last week I did the 620 respool, using Acros ISO 100, and loaded the film into the camera. By my calculation, that's the first time that's been done with this camera in 63 years. I wonder, after that long, what the chances are that the shutter speeds will still be right.

This camera is a natural for double (or more) exposures. But the lack of a flash trigger is regrettable. Last night, I set everything up, turned out the room lights except for a nightlight, and did a double exposure - head shots with me as the "model" on both sides of the frame. I used my standard manual speedlight with a shoot-thru umbrella, but I had to set the shutter speed to 1 second, trigger the self-timer, and then when I heard the shutter open I manually pressed the test button on my radio trigger transmitter, which I was holding in my lap. It will be interesting to see if it came out. I used my digital camera to set everything up, test for a black background, and get the exposure and flash power right, so I think there's a chance it will come out ok. I think this is called a voice-actuated radio trigger. :-)

But, it would be nice if I could get the flash to work normally. Is that at all possible with this camera? I'm pretty good at electronics, but just don't see how it could be made to work. In fact, I kinda wonder how they did the flash sync on model II, particularly since it's still all mechanical. I would have to rig something up that triggered the flash immediately after the shutter opens, but I don't see how I would detect that that has happened.

By the way, after doing some math, it looks to me that the field of view of the Medalist should be the same as setting my kit lens to about 26mm on my Canon T2i (1.6x crop).

And further by the way, I cleaned both the front and rear surfaces of the lens, but there is still some dust which appears to be on the interior elements. Would I be correct in assuming that that crud is there to stay, even if I have the camera cleaned?

December 10, 2011

Just wanted to say that if the shoot-through spills light where you don't want it, it's possible to address that by taping a cardboard gobo to the offending side of the speedlight so that that side of the umbrella isn't lit. I often put a gobo on the background side of my speedlight so the background isn't lit by the umbrella. It's not as cleancut as a softbox, but works quite well for me.

December 7, 2011

I haven't, but you might also look at the Yongnuo version for a good bit less money:

YONGNUO MC-36R/C1

The C1 version is for Canon Rebels, so you might need one with a different connector. The disadvantage of the Yongnuo is that it uses a CR2 battery in the receiver, which is expensive, but the Pixel may use the same battery.

November 25, 2011

Well, you'll be limited to the 450D's sync speed (1/200 second I think) when using this flash. That's the fastest shutter speed that has both shutter curtains fully open at the same time. But 1/200 and slower speeds should work fine if there's little ambient light.

The side contact will be the one that makes contact with the metal rail of the hotshoe. That's ground, in effect.

Good luck.

November 22, 2011

If this flash does have a thyristor on the front that senses the light reflecting off the subject, then that component works essentially as a variable resistor. So you can replace it with a real variable resistor which doesn't sense anything but still gives you control over the power level. And you can combine that with the orange/green/white color slider, which probably selects ranges of power levels.

I did this lobotomy to an old Vivitar 3500 flash, which is the same kind of "automatic" flash, and it works fine. But instead of a variable resistor, I used a switch to select between two fixed resistor values, and that switch in combination with the slider gives me 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32 power, which are the equivalent of 1-stop successive decrements.

But unless you do something like that, you don't have much control over the power level beyond what the slider gives you, and the flash will be trying to do your thinking for you, which may not be a good thing. You might also try taping over the thyristor sensor, and seeing (from the histogram) what variations you get with the slider alone. That would at least give you consistency.

November 20, 2011

Clay, you don't by chance have the bulb lever flipped to the right, do you? If it's not that, then I can't help with the stuck shutter.

November 20, 2011

Well I got the respooling done with no problem. At least I think I did. I rolled the film off the 120 spool onto a 620 spool, then back in the opposite direction onto a second 620 spool. My understanding is that doing it that way you don't have to re-tape the film to the paper - it ends up right, with no bulge.

But I did have the lights on at the beginning of both winds so I could make sure the paper got started right. But just for a couple turns, then total darkness. Hope that works.

I did have one glitch because I didn't understand how the Medalist winding and locking mechanism works, so I had to go back into the dark, open the camera, take out the film, and rewind it back to the beginning. The manual talks about having the counter's "0" at "the forward part of the window" but it seems it has to be right in the middle to keep the winding lock from activating. Then when you see the paper "1" appear right at the edge of the red window, you put the counter "1" right in the middle, and turn the winding knob until it locks, which leaves the paper "1" in the middle of the red window. Well, I'll know how next time. Now I just hope all that winding and rewinding didn't expose the film.

Also, I didn't use gloves. So we'll see if that mattered. It seems the only time you touch the film is when you tuck the loose end in. I doubt there's a frame that close to the end. And not using gloves means no lint.

I think I can do nifty double exposures with this camera. So check my logic on this: The Medalist I has no flash triggering output. But I think I can use my regular off-camera strobist flash by setting the shutter to 1 second, using the self-timer, and triggering the flash by hand during that second using my radio trigger test button. I just need to do this in near darkness so even at 1 second the ambient light doesn't register significantly on the film. And then if I can make sure the flash doesn't light up the background, I should be able to do double exposures - me on both sides, for instance.

For it's day, this appears to be a relatively nifty camera, and the respooling wasn't bad at all.

November 15, 2011

Well, the cheapest film they had at the local lab was Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100, so I got a roll of that. That's a t-grain film I believe. If this works, I'll need to buy in greater bulk online, and will want to try the Ilford FP4+ just to see what difference it makes.

November 15, 2011

Thanks to everyone for the responses.

Franklin, yes I thought there was an Ilford non-t-grain film. Thanks. I'll see if I can find it locally. Stephen, I'm afraid that to start with I'm going to bring along a digital camera to meter with. Then when I get used to how the Medalist behaves in known circumstances, I can venture into Sunny 16 land. Also, to start with the developing will be farmed out to a local shop, and I don't know how much development control I'll have re shooting Tri-X at 200.

John, yes I'm going to respool. I have an indoor bathroom that's actually dark, so I think I have a fair chance of successful respooling without bothering with the changing bag. I did finally find a couple 620 spools, so now I understand I need some cotton gloves, and I'll be ready to give it a try. I've watched several videos on how to do it, and think I understand. Whether I can duplicate it by feel alone is another question.

November 14, 2011

I'm going to try shooting with my father's Kodak Medalist (circa 1944). It uses 620 film, and has a 100mm f3.5 lens, which can be stopped down to f32. However, the fastest shutter speed is 1/400 second, and there's a blurb in the manual that says if you're going to use that speed, you have to choose it before you advance the film into position. So 1/200 is the fastest speed that's always available.

I'm new to this, but it seems to me that an ISO 100 film is going to generally be more useful than ISO 400, particularly for outdoor shooting. The films available when the camera was made were E.I. 125, such as Verichrome or Plus-X.

But if I'm right about that, then that rules out Tri-X, and would leave T-Max or some other t-grain film. Unless there's an Ilford that would be like an ISO 100 Tri-X.

So what would you suggest?

November 10, 2011

Doesn't sound like this would be Elizabeth's problem, but I'm curious whether the bulb itself deteriorates over time. In theory, everything else you could fix.

October 31, 2011

I would just ditto what Christopher says. You can go a long way with just one light and a brolly. And you can get the whole setup - stand, umbrella adapter, umbrella, flash, and radio trigger - for $200 or less.

October 29, 2011

Jeff, I'm not a pro photographer, and my approach is not exactly rigorous. I shoot with a Canon T2i and a 50mm f1.8 lens, usually at about f5.6 to f8 (sharper there) mounted on a tripod, and using a wired remote trigger. As for squaring to the painting, I basically have been eyeballing it from off to the side, and then using perspective adjusting software to correct things if I get it a bit wrong. But the suggestion in your other thread of using a mirror sounds like a better solution.

By the way, the first dozen paintings I shot were done with a Canon A590 P&S. One of those pics was blown up and used as the poster for the artist's gallery exhibit, and it looked great. So in some respects photographing paintings isn't really a big challenge - for the camera. You have plenty of light, there are no depth-of-field or focus issues, and both the subject and camera are fixed in place. So basically, so long as it gets the colors right, any camera will work pretty well.

So I set the custom white balance using a white target, then use a grey (18%) card to set the exposure in Manual mode, then I remove the card and take the picture at that exposure. And then of course I take a few more that are slightly over or under exposed, and also using various contrast settings. Through experience I've found that for my camera upping the contrast two steps usually produces the best result. What I've had trouble with in the past was letting the camera set the exposure. That doesn't work because it always wants to make things 18% grey on average, but most paintings aren't like that. So manual using the grey card works better.

I think the money potential would be good, but only if you can establish yourself as a first rate photographer for this genre. To the auction houses and and major dealers, it's really important that the work be very high quality. So pictures need to be very good, but just not materially better looking than the painting. You don't want a buyer to be disappointed on seeing the original.

So how would you handle the white balance issue? Are you going to scan in the negatives, and then stay digital from then on? If so, you could correct white balance easily. But does Ektachrome have color peculiarities that would require further adjustment? Ideally you would want a film that's as "true" as possible color-wise.

If you end up specializing in this and going for the big bucks, of course you'll want to get all the fancy lighting gear - because they won't pay you the big bucks unless you have that stuff. But for now you might want to try the outdoor method. The thing about natural light is that while there may be an overall cast to it in terms of temperature, it's still full spectrum light - all wave lengths are present to at least some degree. And in the shade it comes from everywhere, so the painting is going to be well lit. I originally thought there might be reflection issues, but that hasn't been the case so far.

I was interested in the thread you mentioned in the first sentence of your original post here. I think that's the one you gave me the link for.

October 28, 2011

I've done the photography for a painter friend of mine, and have had great results from taking the paintings outside, in the shade or on an overcast day, instead of dealing with all the lighting gear. Of course I'm using a digital camera, and doing custom white balance, and don't know if that method would work for film, but an overcast or cloudy sky acts as a wonderful giant soft box, with very even illumination, and Ektachrome might be perfect in that environment. We've found a good spot that works for us, and the results are consistently good. And these are large paintings - as much as 6 feet on the longest side.

But you're right about this potentially being a good source of income if you can build a reputation for doing it well. There was a Wall Street Journal article early this year about Tom Powel, who specializes in photographing artwork in New York. He charges $2000 a day. Of course that includes two assistants, and who knows how much lighting gear (they photograph in place in the artist's studio, not outside). Having a really good photo of a work of art is critical for things like auction brochures, websites, etc., and it you're trying to sell a painting for $100,000, a couple grand for the photography is no big deal, so long as it's done well.

There is an interesting question as to whether a photograph of a painting is eligible for copyright. Since the whole purpose is to create an exact duplicate, it may be what the lawyers call a "slavish copy" and if so, the painter would own the copyright, not the photographer. This is not settled law, however.

If you can recall where it is, I'd like to read the previous thread you referred to.

May 26, 2011

Here's a video that may be helpful:

<a href="

You could also Google on Canon 50mm 1.8 disassembly and see what turns up.

May 6, 2011

You say this happens "frequently" but apparently not always. Are you sure you aren't causing the back-focus yourself by doing a focus-and-recompose with the center focus point? That can easily cause the same problem. The true test would be if you autofocus and then take the picture without moving the camera at all. If it focuses behind the subject then, then there really is a problem.

May 1, 2011

I just received a T2i under the CLP program. I have an XT which had hot shoe problems, and I was going to trade that in. But that would have been a mistake because even with a non-working shoe, the XT is worth perhaps $200. Sergio, even with a bad shutter or mirror, your 40D is worth good money even if only for parts, and in fact it would probably make economic sense to repair it.

So I went to a local thrift store and bought an old Canon P&S film camera for $5, and traded THAT in. It just has to be ANY Canon camera that isn't working and is out of warranty. So go find a dead film camera, and keep your 40D. Trade in something that has essentially NO value, not a DSLR, even if broken.

The T2i I received looked brand new. Looking at the body, I don't see any indication the camera had ever been used. I think it is possible to get a bad one under this program, but I think most people have a good experience. And you do save a good bit of money.

April 26, 2011

Actually, my only complaint about that one is it doesn't have an on/off switch. I assume the power draw when it's idling is so low that it doesn't matter much. Even so, I store it with the batteries removed. And I decided to use alkalines, not rechargeables - no self-discharge, and they should last a long time.

April 25, 2011

I recently bought one of these:

It's $18.25 with free shipping. Runs on two AAA's. I don't see any reason to pay more. It works just fine. You can control initial delay, bulb exposure time, interval, and number of shots. It automatically does a half-press about 2 seconds before taking the picture. I've used this with my XT, but it also works on the T2i - I confirmed that on a friend's camera.

April 16, 2011

No, the shoe is quite tight. Nothing loose at all.

April 16, 2011

Thanks, Peter. Yes, cleaning the contacts was the first thing I tried. Unfortunately that didn't help. Thanks for the link to that pdf. Now, if I could just find a circuit schematic. :-)

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