[Mike Cash]

Good thing she has the pop-up flash going......

[Pepe Guitarra]

Good thing she has the pop-up flash going......

I thought the same thing!

[eddie1960]

Wow, are these even straight? And people worry about single coating, multi coating...

there are straight ones yes. and i've seen some examples that looked very good. the reason i said b/w specifically is they throw a strong colour cast.

came originally from a DIY forum, flickr discussion below

Flickr: Discussing Welding Glass ND Filter tutorial (flickr) in Neutral Density Filters

there are many ways to attache, Cokin P holder is easy, some people have just bough the adapter ring for the holder glued it direct and trimmed making a screw on filter out of it

Colour cast is easy to deal with. just shoot a pure white card and store that as your reference for custon WB profile in post and shoot raw

Certainly a cheap way to get into it. not optically perfect but it costs signifigantly less than a perfect one (and most true filters are not perfect either unless you go to pretty high end)

samples certainly look more than passable, lots of examples on Flickr. Certainly a Lee is still superior but it should be

welding glass - Flickr: Search

[Argenticien]

I have similar thoughts about the M135f3.5. It's even lighter and it's sharp wide open. The min focus issue was solved by getting a DFA100WR though. Now the tak 105 gets very little use.

DFA100WR!?!? It's got no aperture ring for use on my old film bodies, and I've not got USD 700 lying about waiting to be spent. Although a 30 cm MFD would be nice ...
--Dave

[vladimiroltean]

Well oh my god, that may be the best piece of advice that I've heard in quite a while, after all. Certainly sound very fun to try, now I just have to go to sleep and wait until tomorrow to find some welding glass

[tim60]

For a change my wife commissioned a photo from me. She wants to source some plumbing fittings overseas (in Australia the set of brass fittings here cost $45 - and you thought photography is expensive!)

So out came the STak 50/1.4 to see what I could do. I think the pictures show what we need. (She will be asking a partiuclar shop - I am not asking for help to get the parts). The light was 40W tungsten just out of frame.

It is a long time since I did some parts pictures like this. The first time was when I worked in a coal mine, and we needed some door runner bearings, so I lined them up on Polaroid. The workshop manager looked at them and said, "I asked for pictures, not a work of art". When the right parts arrived he gave me the pictures as a souvenir.

Maybe Mike Cash could give some information about plumbing: In Japan are shower/bath taps normally fitted inside the wall or outside the wall, with only the pipes inside? The fittings I am trying to attach are a Japanese brand bought in Taiwan.

[tim60]

Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 + K-r

The post at the top of this page.

There is something really nice about the hand on the fence. It makes me look again and again. It is the combination of feminine and hard stuff, I think.

There is a photo from about 1943 in the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, of a lady operating a lathe which has the same effect. Still remember it even though the only time I saw it was 25 years ago.

[yiptwo]

The post at the top of this page.

There is something really nice about the hand on the fence. It makes me look again and again. It is the combination of feminine and hard stuff, I think.

There is a photo from about 1943 in the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, of a lady operating a lathe which has the same effect. Still remember it even though the only time I saw it was 25 years ago.

Thanks my friend.
but actually I didn't think of that when I took that shot.

[vladimiroltean]

The welding glass turned to be no good... it decreased sharpness incredibly and I couldn't remove the green tint 100%. Now I'm doing a 50 shot series in which I'm trying to prove myself that I do deserve a Hoya 9 stop ND filter. Here's the first one, shot today with the Tak 28mm and a polarizer:

[eddie1960]

The welding glass turned to be no good... it decreased sharpness incredibly and I couldn't remove the green tint 100%. Now I'm doing a 50 shot series in which I'm trying to prove myself that I do deserve a Hoya 9 stop ND filter. Here's the first one, shot today with the Tak 28mm and a polarizer:

thanks for trying it. I still might for b/w (max i have right now is a 4 stop i could combine with a cpl to get in the 5 stop range)

[vladimiroltean]

Yea, at one time I was thinking you were just pulling my leg, I had already "sacrificed" a skylight filter for which I had no use, and rode all day through Bucharest on my bike searching for a glazier to cut a circle out of the welding glass, but couldn't find any who had the right tool (lame, isn't it?). Now that I'm startled I just need to find the funds for a proper ND and get into some landscape photography.

[eddie1960]

Yea, at one time I was thinking you were just pulling my leg, I had already "sacrificed" a skylight filter for which I had no use, and rode all day through Bucharest on my bike searching for a glazier to cut a circle out of the welding glass, but couldn't find any who had the right tool (lame, isn't it?). Now that I'm startled I just need to find the funds for a proper ND and get into some landscape photography.

I saw the idea come up on a couple of diy blogs, and i've been meaning to give it a whirl (we don't get a lot of days with the right clouds for the look i wanted in Toronto so i've been slow on it), Sounded to good to be true, OTOH some of the posts have looked pretty good (but judging iw on web posts is a fools game) For me if they work reasonably and print well out to 20x24 they may be the trick (I've shot some with 5 stop and panf 120 pulled to iso 25. b/w ir film is good for this as well sometimes since the filter is quite dense

[vladimiroltean]

Not worth it in my opinion. The loss of contrast and sharpness is unacceptable, plus that, as I suspected, it's not 100% flat, more like window glass. Please tell me, is there any way I could upload some of my pictures on PF? My attachment space is full, and soon will be my Flickr space I'm afraid.

[Argenticien]

How do you Tak-masters grasp a lens like the SMC Tak 1.8/55 to screw it onto or unscrew it from a camera? I mention that lens only as an example; the question applies to any lens where there is not a ring at the very back of the lens meant for that purpose (such as the 3.5/135 has got). I think I read somewhere that we're not to grasp the aperture ring and unscrew by that, as that could damage that ring over time; and it seems like same would apply to the focusing ring. This problem seems worse with something like a K20D where the stupid Cyclops flash bulge gets in the way, but really I don't find it any easier on an original screwmount film body either, because no ring to grasp is still no ring to grasp.

Apologies if I've missed an easy existing answer to this; maybe I didn't Google the right mix of words...

--Dave

[vladimiroltean]

Anywhere except the focusing and aperture ring should make no difference, because everything, including the distance scale and filter barrel, are held by (usually 3) set screws. I personally grasp the lens with my full hand, because I think the pressure will get evenly distributed that way.
(by the way, I'm no Tak-master, so read this message with a grain of salt)