Tony Rowlett

The thought came up in the forum, but it went nowhere. Um, I shouldn't be looking forward to a bunch of people coming up here next month to beat me up, should I? :-)

Sorry to have misspelled your name. Marc, not Mark.

Mark, go to <a href="http://www.photo.net/gallery/photocritique/choose-email">http://www.photo.net/gallery/photocritique/choose-email</a> and sign up for photo critique alerts (which you don't have to use). This is the best way, I think.

I sure can't take credit for the high content quality and civility of our forum, but we're sure the busiest forum in photo.net -- by leaps and bounds. This is partly due to the fact that not enough threads get deleted which leaves a lot of repeated topics. I need to recruit an additional moderator who can help me diplomatically prune our repeat questions and help me categorize the hundreds of posts in the "Uncategorized" category.

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As busy as we are for photo.net, it would be great if we substantially increasted the number of paid subscriptions to photo.net. That'd make us look good! After seven years of using photo.net, I finally paid my dues just last week!

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Rob, you can pay and request not to have icons show up next to your name. I hear that numerous folks have asked not to have them.

Several folks have emailed me asking why they cannot post to the

forum. This message is just to let you know that you are not being

rejected on purpose, although it must look lik it. I am deeply

sorry and I know it must be frustrating. There may be some

incompatibility somewhere between your computer/platform/browser and

whatever mechanism is in place to accept posts here. I am not sure

what course to take right now, other than to advise that if you are

having problems making posts here (either initial questions, or

responses to existing threads), one thing that you can try is to

make a post from a different computer to see if that works.

Further, if you would like to write to me (<a

href="mailto:rowlett@alaska.net">rowlett@alaska.net</a>) with

specific details like platform, and browser version, etc., I will in

turn report this information to management at photo.net to see if we

can resolve the problem.<p>

Thank you for your patience, and thanks to everyone for

participating here. And, to those who cannot post, thanks for at

least lurking!

Alternatively, could it be that Nat. Geo. is still the same, you are just becoming a better photographer? Compare current issues with the last umpty-years worth and you may find that your own tastes and expectations have changed.

I keep hearing that medium and large formats produce better negatives than the small format (24x36mm). I understand how this is true with regards to "enlargability" i.e. medium and large format negatives can be enlarged to a greater degree than 35mm for a given viewing distance, but that's where my acceptance of the above notion ends.

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I also disagree with the notion that not using a tripod trumps the optical qualities of Leitz and Leica lenses. The idea is that if an object is not rendered "sharp," certain optical qualities of the lens do not become apparent. Hogwash. Mother Nature's raw temperatures are only one factor among other signifigant variables that contribute to whether you feel hot or cold outside (wind, humidity, location, etc.). Likewise, object "sharpness" is only one small factor in lens performance, even when the camera is on a tripod. I just plainly resist the notion that large photographs are inherently better than small ones.

A long time ago in the general Q&A I was pressing the (correct) argument that perspective has nothing to do with focal length yet everything to do with the camera's position relative to the subject, until somebody pointed out that a lens can have a very dramatic effect on perspective: His wife's! :-)

Wow, did I get my question answered, or what? Interesting. I didn't know it was so useful a feature. I have always decided focal length based solely on my mood.

You're not ripping yourself off, you're investing your time and efforts and asking questions about what does and does not work. You're doing exactly what you should be doing (the evidence is in your excellent body* of work), while others - who are not improving their photography - are not doing what you're doing. The next time you revisit the location (pictured), you may come to a satisfying conclusion to your dilemma. That's what makes you a photographer. Now that I've said that, I ought to take your queue and try it sometime!!

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* pun intended ;-)

Presumably, the frame preview lever on Leica M cameras is for

helping the camera user decide which lens to use by showing

alternative sets of frame lines. The scenario being something

like "Hmm, I have the 50mm lens mounted on my camera now, but I

wonder what the 35mm lens would provide in terms of area of

coverage? Well, let me see, I'll just flick this little lever

and..." I realize the 90mm frame lines are useful with the Leica

Meter attachment. But for a camera with very few controls,

something like 7, in a market where some cameras have a hundred or

so, I wonder just how often this feature is actually used? With the

M6 and onward, I have never used it. Just kind of odd to me that

such a useless feature still exists on the camera.

There are definitely a number of contributors who deserve the Hero status, including those mentioned and several others. Though the management of photo.net makes the final decision about who is identified as a hero, individual moderators do carry some weight regarding nominations. (Incidently, my status as hero came solely with my job as forum moderator and editor of the Leica reviews. If moderators get an icon, it should probably be different.)

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John Collier became a hero a long time ago, really. The icon is well deserved. <b><i>Way to go, John!!</i></b>

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Several more of our heros are also due to be recognized. I think it is the position of photo.net management that well-reasoned nominations will be considered so that the occaisional promotion can take place. If Brian is lurking, maybe he can chime in and (hopefully) confirm this.

Rats, I can't delete it now because it has interesting content. I'll add "II" to the title, though.

I'm sorry that you're going through that. Copying into your paste buffer is the best bet for now. There are so many variables between PCs, platforms, and web browsers that it could be next to impossible to isolate the problem. This sort of problem will most likely plague places like photo.net for a long time to come. The industry is lacking somewhat in true standardization among browsers and HTML versions. Couple of extra keystrokes to save your response before submitting is the answer, at least for now.

Where'd the vinegar come from? I found Stephen's article and photographs to be awe-inspiring. On Stephen being surprised that Gary used his M4? Give me a break; he was merely drawing attention to the wonderful signs of wear that Leica enthusiasts enjoy looking at. Thanks for posting.

Precisely my situation, except I can duck into the garage. And this captures it nicely. Probably a heck of a stogie, too. I can tell from that beeeaaauuutiful smoke detail!

Allen, you're trying to ram your photography philosophy down Andrew's throat. That's not what the Q&A forums are for. The forum is here to help people learn about photography. He asked a question about the use of 39mm neutral density filters. Your contribution was lame in that it went absolutely nowhere to answer his question, so it is completely off topic. Obviously he wants to know more about ND filters.

In my view, this forum has the potential to be the single most interesting forum in all of photo.net. I like the way it's always been, with an emphasis on technique with photographing people and with very little talk about equipment. I intend to involve myself here more in the future when I can figure out a way to resume scanning. I'm sure glad to see that this place still exists, and I'm glad to see that we'll have some fair moderation.

Rob said, <i>Joseph, thanks for the articulate response!</i><p>

I say, "Joseph, watch your mouth. Tsk tsk. My father, who is an exceptionally polite and proper man, keeps an eye on this forum. If you offend him, you offend me and the majority of this forum. We are high class here!

I go into each FS/WTB post and set a 30-day expiration. Then about once a day I go in and wipe all the ones that are expired.

Just to be clear, I am not yet imposing a "Friday (or Wednesday or whichever day) Only" policy for FS postings. However, if you wish to limit FS posts to a single day, I have no problem. And I think that's where we're headed. Fridays would be good I think because that would align the forum with the Leica Users Group mail list, and the entire Internet will be pleasantly flooded with a type of Leica fest!

The next step will probably be to limit them to a single day of the week, like Fridays, like the LUG does. But worse than too high a number of FS posts to our forum would be too many changes to forum policies. Let's live with it for awhile, and in a few months we'll see how we're doing, OK? If the numbers are still too high, maybe we can reform the policy.

Good grief. I meant to say, "I'm not <i>sure</i> the site can be spammed..."

By the way, I think that many of the the large format group members object to commercialization, not the font tag restriction. Two completely different things, albeit fairly minor ones if you ask me.

The option to use HTML is handy for ordered and unordered lists, bold, italics, and tables, but using the font tag is disallowed. I'm not show the site can be spammed unless it is from a member. It may be an out-of-date restriction.

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<table border=2 width=50%>

<tr><td><b>Table Data</b><td><i>Table Data</i>

<tr><td>More Data<td>More Data

</table>

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Some useful HTML tags that are allowed:

<ul>

<li>bold

<li>italics

<li>tables

<li>unordered lists

<li>ordered lists

</ul>