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Forum: Vintage Cameras and Equipment
10-31-2023, 06:04 PM
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I've had two LXs for about 25 years. They are lovely cameras to use. They've been pretty reliable with occasional servicing for mirror issues. One is going out soon for repair of a sluggish mirror. The techs I'm using have worked on my cameras before and say there is no problem. However, I think buying one with unknown history and no guarantee would be a bit of a crap shoot. When I was a salaried professional I used Nikon F3 extensively. They are also very nice cameras. I'd recommend going to groups in the Nikon world to research reliability. As a really long-term proposition I would go for mechanical cameras such as the MX, KX or KM which can be used with external meters if necessary.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
05-04-2023, 07:03 PM
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Dogsled race finish on the Mackenzie River at Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories, 1983. Probably with a Ricoh XR-1s and Rikenon 50mm. The dog in the lead nailed a local dog resulting in a pup that I raised and had for many years.
 83-07-004 Master.jpg by John Poirier, on Flickr
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-02-2023, 08:27 PM
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I agree. My main interest for the last 15 years or so has been highly detailed landscape images. Mostly I use a 36MP full frame camera. I used to make and sell prints up to 2x3 feet, although I have largely retired from that. I continue to print my finished work on 13x19 paper because in my view prints are the true measure of a good landscape photograph.
I've been experimenting with Topaz Photo AI for landscapes. Noise reduction is very valuable to me as I cannot carry a tripod any distance and often work in dense forests under heavy clouds. My choices are to either hand-hold at high ISOs or to not photograph the subjects that I love. With Denoise AI and now Photo AI I can achieve excellent results up to ISO 12,800. Without that capability I would have to give up much of my photography.
My images need little sharpening, so I use that function sparingly. It can be nice to add a little crispness to things like small leaves.
Human guidance:
I have customized Photo AI in the preferences settings. I disabled facial recognition and subject recognition. I enabled the low (soft) option in the sharpen preferences.
So far I have found that I rarely need to manually adjust noise reduction. I often reduce sharpening a bit.
Limited tests with old low-resolution digital files and film images look promising.
One of the reasons for this screed is that I've grown tired of people very aggressively stating that you are not a real photographer if you use tools like Photo AI. The tone reminds me of those who were outraged by digital cameras. Perhaps the purists could go back to producing daguerreotypes.
Some real photographers, like photojournalists, work under fast-changing, often poorly lit conditions. Some real photographers have to find workarounds for disabilities.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
02-23-2023, 06:58 PM
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I've kept all my negatives since 1971.
I've been doing my own scanning since 1994 and did preservation management in an archives for 20 years. I've been retired for many years.
Unless you are paying for custom scanning, I would not count on scans from a lab to be of high quality or of high enough resolution to be useful for serious printing. It is wise to hang on to the negatives in case you want higher quality.
Last year I finished a project involving high resolution scanning over 15000 frames of my film images for donation to the archives where I used to work. While it would have been easier for them to simply take on the images solely as digital files, they badly wanted the original film for backup. They are in the process of extracting the selected film originals from many archival storage pages.
I think many archives are just beginning to come to grips with managing digital images.
One thing about film is that it survives quite well with a minimum of attention other than proper enclosures and sometimes cold storage. Much film will last a long time without that care.
Proper preservation of digital images requires ongoing monitoring of multiple backups, data migration as storage devices fail or become obsolete, and format conversion in the event that a format is in danger of becoming unreadable.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
08-02-2018, 07:12 PM
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Today I decided to confirm some tests I did a number of years ago. I don't completely trust comparisons with digital camera meters. My chief concerns are that digital camera ISO ratings can be fudged, and that "matrix" metering can behave differently from the metering pattern of old film cameras. As well, testing methodology affects results. Metering off an 18% gray card, which is considered a standard method for testing meters, will produce different results from metering off a random subject.
I used a Sekonic L-358 incident meter, in incident mode, and a Pentax Spotmeter V. With a gray card used for the spot meter, the two meters agree within about .1 stop.
I tested a Spotmatic, Spotmatic 1000, and a Spotmatic II. I used the same fresh 394 battery in all three. My results with the various Spotmatics reading off a gray card were within .1 to .3 stops of the readings from the hand-held meters. All three cameras would have produced slight overexposure.
My results were consistent with my testing from years ago. At that time I tested three different types of silver oxide batteries and observed no differences in their behaviour.
Over the years my results on film from Spotmatics have been consistent with what the meters tell me.
I used to do large format process control involving hand-held meters and densitometers, so I am pretty confident in my procedures.
|What it boils down to is that, speaking for myself, I would not hesitate to use silver oxide batteries as a replacement for mercury batteries in Spotmatic bodies. I would not worry about recalibration or use of special adapters such as CRIS.
Cheers
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
02-20-2019, 09:16 PM
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It's good to see some Koni Omega work showing up. I've used Koni Omegas since 1987. Here is one of my earliest Kon Omega shots (Pangnirtung, Nunavut) done with the 90mm:
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-20-2018, 10:57 AM
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I've never been able to figure out how to put film in a K2000...
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
08-01-2018, 03:14 AM
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As a retired professional I've done regular solo shows at various galleries in my region. Also a goodly number of group shows. My shows are of what I considered my personal work when I was a working pro. I have sold a reasonable number of prints. I would not try to make a living from it. Very, very few "fine art" photographers make substantial incomes from print sales. They make most of their money from day jobs, from commercial work, of from teaching photography.
I've slowed down a lot and in future expect to do one or two shows a year at local galleries. I can do the photography but the travel and schmoozing to market my work to major urban galleries is more than I care to take on at this stage in life. However, I intend to continue making prints to please myself. For me a good print is a much more true expression of photography than an "image" on a (usually uncalibrated) monitor.
Incidentally, much of my work is on FF digital. I continue to shoot film because I enjoy the process, including messing around with old cameras. Some of the film work is good enough to show, but usually as 12x18 prints from 35mm rather than the 24x36 prints I can easily pull from FF digital. There's nothing wrong with a good 12x18 print, but these days catching audience attention is more a matter of large size than of whether the image has anything interesting to say. Once you have peoples' attention, some begin to see the qualities in pictures that make them worth hanging on their walls and revisiting many times. From my perspective, that is what has made selling my prints worthwhile.
In terms of your image, jellygeist, it's colourful and probably saleable. If it's of a well-known local landmark, that increases the odds of sales. That sort of thing can be sold at local arts/crafts fairs. Cards can also work for shots in this style. However, a single image is unlikely to carry much weight in marketing prints. As a standalone image you might get paid peanuts for it from a stock agency. If you want to sell prints, in my view the image should be part of a body of work that demonstrates that your picture is an example of a consistent artistic vision rather than a fluke.
You may want to look around and see what people are charging for prints at fairs in your area. You will probably find that a lot of them are selling cheap and nasty prints for barely enough money to cover printing and framing expenses, with nothing for their time or operating costs. It's up to you to decide whether you want to compete in that market or aim higher.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
07-20-2018, 11:28 PM
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My favourite vintage lens is an M 50/1.4 that I bought with an MX in about 1981. It continues to perform well, and has some sentimental value. It's had a lot of use in extreme northern conditions. Other than that I have a good assortment of M42 lenses that I enjoy using on vintage bodies. I've mostly gone digital, but still enjoy the process of shooting film.
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Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom
07-18-2017, 06:08 PM
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I've only been processing for 45-odd years, but I agree. I've used water from many different sources without difficulty. If it ain't broke don't fix it. For those of you who may not believe us, get a copy of "Controls in Black and White Photography" by Richard J. Henry. IIRC he dealt with the issue in some detail. In any case, it's a good reference book.
In terms of the effects of high temperature, 82 degrees is probably OK. Just make sure you compensate development time for it properly, and keep the temperature of the rest of the steps close to the same. One issue with some developers is that at higher temperatures the developing time drops to under 5 minutes, which makes even development problematic. Just dilute the developer more or use a less active one to increase time.
In the late 70s I ran a black and white lab for a newspaper publisher. I did lots of push processing at 85 degrees to speed things up. No problems.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
06-15-2017, 01:42 PM
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I photographed this arbutus tree in a snowstorm, which was useful in obscuring distracting background details such as a lighthouse and mountains...Pentax ESII, SMC Takumar 35/2.0, Ilford FP4 Plus
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
06-13-2017, 06:05 PM
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Salal plants in our yard. Pentax S3, Kilfitt Makro Kilar D 40/2.8, HP5 Plus
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
06-12-2017, 04:57 PM
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Haven't posted for a while, but here is something recent. Made with a Pentax S3 and Kilfitt Makro Kilar D 40/2.8 on HP5 Plus.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
05-19-2017, 09:36 AM
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It looks to me like your main problem is underexposure. Judging by the lack of detail in shadows I'd estimate that you are about 3 stops under. (Underexposed negatives are usually described as being "thin" or "lacking in density".) As others have demonstrated, it is possible to correct to some extent in post processing. It's somewhat like "pushing" film, except that software rather than increased development is used to bring contrast and brightness to acceptable levels.
Underdeveloped negatives would tend to be low in contrast but I would expect to see substantially more shadow detail than in your examples. Note that the shot of the section of film strip that you also included appears to be adequately exposed and correctly developed, although perhaps a bit too dense overall. Perfectly useable, though.
I did note that there is some evidence of a bit of light leakage on that film strip, around sprocket holes. If you are bulk loading film, I would suspect a light leak in a cassette.
I wouldn't worry too much about using pixel shift or HDR. If you are filling the frame when copying negs, the K1 has plenty of resolution even without pixel shift. The dynamic range of modern DSLRs is adequate to handle the brightness range of correctly exposed and developed negatives.
Anyhow, you're making a good start.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
06-15-2016, 12:24 PM
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The camouflaged structures are there to draw attention away from the dumpster, which is actually a secret entrance to a bunker whose purpose I can't tell you about.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
05-14-2008, 11:45 AM
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Part of a photo club trip in Vancouver, BC. LX, K 35/2.0, XP2.
And no, he didn't fall over!
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
05-17-2016, 08:32 PM
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Here are some thoughts about the A7r, without hyperbole.
Before buying an A7r, I defined my requirements and did due diligence. The due diligence process took place over a six-month period after the camera was released.
As a long-time professional, that is how I approach major equipment purchases. As distinguished from my hobbyist side, where I make impulse buys of all sorts of "obsolete" lenses.
My remaining professional level work is tripod-mounted landscape photography with large prints as the finished product. All other work is entirely casual. I don't really care about AF, burst rate, etc. etc. I do need a high-quality sensor and the ability to focus manually with very wide lenses in dim light.
My due diligence included reading all available independent reviews and many user reports. In particular, I researched reports on the performance of specific adapted lenses on the A7r. My conclusion was that many of my manual focus lenses would work well on the A7r, but I would need a major upgrade on lenses wider than 28mm. I then bought a Leica adapter and went to a friendly local store where I made test shots with my trickiest lens, a pre-aspherical Leica Summilux 35/1.4. I also verified that there was nothing fatally nasty about the camera's handling, controls and viewfinder. When I examined the RAW files they met my expectations as a member of the Ancient and Honourable Order of Pixel Peepers. A month after I bought the camera, the 16-35 became available locally and, as planned, I bought one.
I'm very happy with the technical quality of my results over the last two years, and have found the camera pleasant to use within my personal parameters. As I've said elsewhere, I wouldn't recommend the A7r as a generalist photographic tool. The K-1 at first glance, and several established cameras from other brands, are better. However, in terms of my personal requirements in my dotage the A7r has been a great success.
The "performance" is not at top-of-the-line Nikon or Canon levels in many ways. This was well-known soon after release. When I researched the A7r, I concluded that for my work an approach similar to my use of medium format film cameras would be appropriate. That has proven to be the case. Fine by me. I'm not a spray and pray type.
I find the EVF and focus magnification extremely useful in my most challenging conditions.
It was widely acknowledged soon after release that the AF performance of the A7r was not brilliant. Sort of average by mirrorless standards at that point. Doesn't matter to me. I've never even bothered to try continuous AF on the thing.
I've done some very casual low-light AF work using adapted A-mount lenses. The performance was adequate. There are issues using native e-mount lenses in low light because they tend to focus stopped down, and some menu diving may be required to overcome this.
"Ergonomics" is a matter of personal preference, experience and flexibility.
I had no problem customizing the interface to meet my needs. Thousands of other people are using the camera happily. In terms of size/weight, I view the camera as modular. I use the battery grip with large lenses. If I want to go compact, I take the grip off and use my Leica lenses. This was expected, which is why I bought the grip as a package with the camera.
Lossy RAW compression strikes me as a rather goofy idea. I've no idea why Sony came up with it. That being said, I've seen no evidence of any problems in most conditions. I have seen a few examples of possible artifacts under extreme conditions. It's only a problem when it's a problem, and that is rare.
You left out shutter vibration, which is at a level that I find very weird in a mirrorless camera. On the other hand, I was prepared for it and had no problem developing simple workarounds for my applications. I can see where it could be a pain in the butt in a fairly narrow range of circumstances.
HopelessTogger, I wish you better luck with the K-1.
---------- Post added 05-17-2016 at 08:51 PM ----------
[/quote]
Please note that in the comment your are "quoting" I suggested sensible research. There was no mention of 6 months of intensive research or of listing all sources.
I suppose indulging in hyperbole could be interpreted as digging yourself a hole.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-16-2016, 03:59 PM
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By definition, a plane has two dimensions, which means it has no depth. Depth of field manifests as a gradient of sharpness reducing with distance on either side of the plane of focus. That gradient has depth. Depth of field calculators are about that gradient, not about a plane.
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