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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
11-04-2021, 12:50 PM
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I see the discussion continues looking for that perfect solvent, but I feel I must repeat my earlier advice - naptha - good old Ronsonol lighter fluid.
I'm often reluctant to state my credentials here on this forum, but my lot in life is to service cameras. I must do full CLA's on at least 100 35mm film SLRs a year, in addition to servicing digital stuff, lenses, TLRs, etc. etc. etc. And as I write this it occurs to me that doing this for 20 years means some 2,000+ 35mm SLRs have crossed my bench. Oh, that's weird, I've never considered that before.
But it's not uncommon to come across an old film camera where someone stuck something really well to the back door. Often it's a K-1000 that was used at some school or something in its former life, and the new owner wants it working well and looking good. But the school firmly glued some identification across the back - nothing that would peel off easily.
And my first choice in looking to get rid of the old residue is lighter fluid. In camera repair it comes closest to the "Universal Solvent", as it flushes out old lubricants and makes way for new. It cleans some kinds of grime that isopropyl alcohol won't budge. It has a 100 uses at least - and one of which is to dissolve old adhesives - especially epoxy based resins that will resist pretty much anything else. And it's awesome in cleaning off contact cement type residues - and it softens up that crap that gets left behind under ancient masking tape.
Aside from being flammable, lighter fluid is pretty easy to get along with. Hazmat suit not required.
At my shop, running out of lighter fluid isn't an option. While I probably go through less than two bottles a year, there's always a spare bottle on the shelf.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
11-03-2021, 02:31 PM
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I've seen quite a few cameras with that stuff stuck into the leatherette.
Best remover I've found is lighter fluid (naptha). Squirt some on and let it sit. Before it completely evaporates, see if it has softened up the adhesive. Scraping, rubbing may be needed to get it off.
It does seem many have resorted to using an epoxy to attach stuff to camera backs, and lighter fluid will soften and loosen epoxy.
If it's really sticky tape residue, well lighter fluid works even faster on that.
The good thing is Pentax leatherette is really tough stuff and can be scraped and worked over without damage.
Lighter fluid does have a drying effect on some plastics/leatherette, but its just a matter of wiping it over with a silicone based treatment to get it moisturized and looking like new again.
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Forum: General Photography
11-02-2021, 10:43 AM
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I came across three very similar devices, also in an estate sale of camera equipment.
It took me awhile to come to the same conclusion: the spikes are for pressing into the ground to put a camera at ground level, once you thread a tripod head onto it.
The fellow who owned them had three of them, all slightly different. One even had extensions to make the spikes taller.
However, it didn't look like any of them were ever put to use - no signs of wear. Probably something that seemed like a cool idea in a camera store somewhere, but never ended up being very practical.
One of them had the three spikes quite closely set, and I decided it was the perfect way to hold three marshmallows over a campfire.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
02-16-2021, 02:41 PM
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Painting the bottom cover isn't the worst thing. Black baseplates are pretty scarce, and all too many will have the battery cover welded to it with corrosion anyway - which is no doubt what happened to your original one.
Keep in mind painting over chrome is a bad idea. It will flake off. While chrome can be stripped chemically, if I were doing a single small part, with nice straight flats like the baseplate, I'd just sand it off with carbide paper and elbow grease.
Unless you are some kind of wizard with spray paint, it is nigh on impossible to match the finish the Japanese could do back in the '60s (yes, I've tried lacquers, enamels, epoxy). You can get a nice black finish, but you won't have to look too closely to see it doesn't match the smoothness of the original. Fortunately, it's on the bottom.
Finding a battery cover isn't impossible, and chrome works just fine (my black SP has a chrome battery cover - original, right?).
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
01-29-2021, 12:54 PM
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I don't think comparing software to screwdrivers and hammers is a fair comparison either. You buy a set of screwdrivers and you can pretty much use them for the rest of your life. Hammers can be passed down through the generations.
Software becomes obsolete far too quickly - especially if you're shelling out $1,000 for Photoshop. It doesn't take too long before you find you don't have some of the cool features of the newer release (and it's debatable how much you'd use it), or you find your new camera's raw files won't open, or you buy that new computer with the newer processors and OS, and your old version doesn't work so well, it at all.
If I were faced with buying a set of screwdrivers for $1,000 that became obsolete within a few years because they didn't fit the latest screws, yeah, I might consider renting a set I could hand in and upgrade every year or so, if it cost me less than $15 a month, and they sent me a new screwdriver in the mail every time a new screw head came out.
I get it, there are people who hate Adobe's subscription model, as they don't use it as much as their Netflix subscription, but it costs the same. But for those of us who do use the programs several times a week for a variety of purposes, the subscription method is a lot less painful than shelling out $1,000 a copy and watching it slowly go out of date. And again, comparing the number of $150 or so gadget purchases we hobby photographers buy in a year and get much less utility from to a subscription to top-grade software is painful ($300 artisenal neck straps, anyone?).
I do chat with a few photographers at times who are limping along with their old versions of PS or Elements, yet own top-grade newer cameras, and they gripe about not being able to open certain files, etc. etc. They seem determined to never buy into the subscription plan out of spite to Adobe. Yet they have that great big variable ND filter they bought a year and a half ago, but haven't got around to using it yet ....
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
01-28-2021, 10:55 AM
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I understand the rationale behind griping about Adobe's subscription model. It's hard to shell out money for something you can't really see or touch. As for myself, I enjoyed renting videos from the local store and returning the disks, but I've never liked the idea of paying to rent a downloaded stream (especially since they don't match the fidelity of a BluRay).
But I've had the basic Photoshop/Lightroom subscription for a few years now, replacing my old copies of CS3 etc. I pay about $150 CDN a year for the software (and don't really use Lightroom all that much), and it's been nice to have it up to date - sort of. I'm conservative with my computer equipment, and don't have the latest and greatest. But when the newer 2019 Photoshop version came out, my computer couldn't download it as I didn't have the newer OS. And it bugged me to be subscribing to have the latest software, without actually being able to get it.
So, I got a newer computer that could run High Sierra, and downloaded the newer Photoshop.... and then they went and updated it to the 2020 version that wouldn't run on High Sierra. A new graphics card later, and I was able to run Catalina, and then get back up to date. So far, so good.
As for the subscription cost, people gripe about paying monthly or yearly for a bunch of data they can't see on their hard drive. But those same folks will think nothing about dropping $150 on some lens filter they use only once or twice a year. At least they can ooh and ahh with the unboxing, and imagine all the cool shots they will now be able to take. When I think back to the days when Photoshop alone was close to $1,000 (and it was only up to date for what, a year or so?) I think the subscription is a bargain.
And I'll repeat the point I've made before, but subscription made a huge amount of sense for Adobe. Far, far, far too many photographers would brag about having the latest and greatest Photoshop version, while I was still nursing my CS3. But far too many of them had pirated copies, which wasn't good for Adobe. Renting it out, month by month, has kept things a lot more honest out there, and I can't blame them.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
01-21-2021, 10:26 AM
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As a teenager in May 1980, I had the misfortune of a bicycle accident that broke my arm and had me laying up in hospital for a week waiting for the swelling to go down so they could make a proper cast and send me home. At the time I was saving up for my first 35mm SLR and was eager for any information about taking photography seriously. When family and friends asked if I needed anything (aside from the tiny hospital rental TV that showed nothing of interest to a male teen in the daytime hours) I asked for camera magazines, and the latest issue of Photo Life was greatly appreciated. I read that cover to cover at least five times over the week. I remember the editor at the time was Norm Rosen, and I read his column several times over too.
Oddly enough, in the early '90s, I ran into Norm in Grand Bend, Ontario, when I was editor of one of the local papers, and he'd been doing a photo shoot offshore with power boats. We chatted for just a few minutes before duty called.
It saddens me a bit, to see the demise of yet another publication, photography or otherwise. I do miss the times when information about our hobby came in monthly packages, carefully selected to fit in the page count, and checked for accuracy and relevance ... and there aren't pages of comments at the bottom of each page proclaiming why each new camera is already obsolete, overpriced, and badly designed.
R.I.P. Photo Life.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
12-18-2020, 12:35 PM
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Pretty funny. Sounds like that 0.1% hard at work.
But we're behind the times here in Ontario. The campgrounds have yet to outfit all trees with outlets to plug in our slide projectors.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
12-18-2020, 09:38 AM
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What I was implying, in a roundabout kind of way, is that Kodak isn't going to be bringing back the Carousel projectors because nobody would want them. While there's interest in transparency film, with a belief it brings something special to the experience, nobody's really planning on projecting them up on a screen anyway (yes, there will be a few diehards out there who seek out an old projector that still works, and a screen that hasn't gone yellow). The last 10 years I shot slide film, pretty much none of them went inside my projector - they all got scanned and enjoyed on a computer screen, or turned into nice inkjet prints. I face the fact that I could have more easily shot negative film, and still scanned and printed. Any special qualities my transparency film had, could likely have been equaled by colour, saturation, etc. adjustments in Photoshop.
What the newbie millennial photographer imagines they will get from cracking open a box of re-minted Ektachrome baffles me. Their images will be scanned and put up on a computer screen 99.9% of the time.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
12-11-2020, 09:42 AM
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Yes, and one thing often overlooked is that digital bodies are often much more durable than their film predecessors. I'd be surprised if a basic camera like the *ist and others in its class back in the mid-'90s-2000's were designed to last much more than an average of 20,000 exposures or so.
That doesn't sound like much today, but that was at least 500+ rolls of film, and the average customer of cameras like that would probably never shoot more than 20 rolls of film through it a year. If you shot more than that, you probably had more than one camera body. At that rate, the camera would last 25-30 years, perhaps (and we all know of plenty that have died before that level of wear and tear). Plastic gears, and other inexpensive, lightweight assemblies couldn't be expected to go the distance like a bigger, heavier, more costly pro-oriented body (for the photographer who would shoot five rolls a film a day).
Early digital bodies wore out their shutters and mirror mechanisms pretty quickly, even if they didn't have to transport film, and were expected to go 50k exposures - because their owners were literally shooting ten times as much as they did with film. Fortunately, those buyers didn't gripe much because they were quickly moving on to higher megapixel, better featured new offerings. But the manufacturers quickly realized they had to come up with more efficient ways to make shutters and mirror boxes last 80-100k exposures.
Those lessons could be transplanted onto a newer issue film body, although there's been no comparable development of film transports for better reliability - and that's where many of the low cost film bodies fell down.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
12-09-2020, 10:40 AM
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While the *ist must have had its fans, they were few and far between. Lightweight plastic build, dim and small viewfinder, buzzy and noisy AF - Pentax at that time seemed in a race to the bottom with Minolta. To be fair, Nikon and Canon were at that time fishing in their waters with low cost models that carried their higher profile brand names: "Hey, I can buy a Canon for the price of that Pentax ..." Minolta seemed to come off the worst for it, with models that built reputations for unreliability.
And Pentax didn't really seem too fussed that their SLRs weren't topping the sales charts - they were doing really well with their Espio series that appealed to a much, much wider audience.
All the lower cost SLRs from that era are pretty much gathering dust these days. From my experience, nearly all those looking to pick up film photography are looking for a classic, chrome and leatherette, knobs and dials experience.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
12-05-2020, 02:28 PM
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Uh, not really. When I had my Hasselblad a few years ago, I came across a Polaroid back for it. Suddenly inspired to do something great with it, I got some of the Fuji peel-apart film for it (FP-100C) still available at the time, and took it on a short photo safari in a local park.
Yeah, the back is big, and the film has an image area of about 72x94mm, but I somehow failed to realize that the film gate of a 'Blad is about 55x55mm. For a final print, that's pretty darned tiny, and my plans to "do something" with the images amounted to nothing.
I suppose some avant garde photographer could (and probably has) take one of the tiny images, and frame it inside a giant 24x36 inch frame and hang it in a gallery, forcing the viewer to get really close and personal to the work to see what has been photographed, and get their mind blown by the sense of scale that implies (glass of gallery champagne in hand, of course).
Polaroid backs for medium format and 35mm cameras were never really intended to be anything other than exposure and lighting checkers for commercial photographers. You looked at the instant image with a magnifier to be sure all was good, before putting the real film into the camera. Even if it cost a couple of bucks, the Polaroid got tossed in the trash, but was worth it to make sure you didn't have to come back and re-shoot the location because you screwed something up in the lighting.
Many of the ones custom built for 35mm bodies used a short fiber optic stack to pipe the film plane image a few millimeters back to the film pack. This, of course, means the image was actually just a cluster of pixels with the resolution of the fibers. Not high quality, and not intended for anything other than exposure checking.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
12-04-2020, 08:33 AM
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Yeah, I don't quite get the interest in resurrected slide film. It's not like Kodak's going to bring back the Carousel projectors to go along with it. While we can all recall our preferences for a particular slide film, or negative film, over another, most of these differences in colour balance, saturation, etc, can be minimized in the scanning and processing these days. The main reason I was a slide film fan when I first got serious about photography was that my images came back as I intended them. If I went for some underexposure, the lab couldn't brighten it up in printing. If I used a light blue filter for a cooler image, the lab couldn't warm it up in printing. But these benefits disappear when you stuff your negative or slide into the scanner.
And as for the comment that the webverse wants the K1000 back at $200 or so, I might point out that's what the pre-China K1000s cost back in 1980. By the time they were discontinued in 1998 or so, the Chinese ones were selling for $499 locally. Reverse adjusting for inflation, a $200 K1000 today should have cost about $80 back in 1980.
If we're going to dream, I'd like Ricoh to buy up the design for the Contax S2 and bring it back with a K-mount on it.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
11-28-2020, 08:49 AM
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I think Pentax would be between a rock and a hard place if they ever decide a 35mm film SLR would be a good addition to their lineup.
The kind of camera for which there would be the most demand would be a traditional manual SLR like the good old K1000. Trouble is, a mechanical body like the K1000 needs lenses with an aperture ring - and Pentax no longer makes a full lineup with them.
So, do they re-introduce lenses with aperture rings to support a niche film body? Or do they go electronic body control so the camera could work with all D-FA lenses, and end up with a camera with much less retro appeal?
Neither option works until all those lovely vintage film bodies wear out and demand for new ones spikes heavily.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
11-07-2020, 09:24 AM
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I took the cover off a Spotmatic F I have here. It is wired, from the bottom: white, orange, black then grey.
However, I notice yours has the grey wire on the third contact - but since that's connected to the fourth contact anyway (see the tiny jumper trace that connects the two behind the retaining hook) they could be wired in either way with no difference.
So, it looks like in your camera the black wire came loose from the fourth contact from the bottom - the one between the retaining hook, and the pressure switch.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
10-28-2020, 10:03 AM
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I would tie the demise of the hammer handle flash with the rise in ISO of typical colour films, and the arrival of more efficient shoe mount units.
When the hammer handle ruled supreme in the hands of the event photographer, many colour films were ISO 64 or 125. A big blast of light was needed to get any distance to the subject. Also, their bigger batteries offered quicker recycling than AA-powered unit.
By the 1990s, films were typically faster, and event photographers were being groomed to abhor the edge shadows produced by a side-mounted flash. Brackets like the very popular Stroboframe were used to keep flash units above the lens and shadows down behind the subject at all times - no exceptions. And the bigger units mounted up on top of such a bracket were generally powerful enough to do the job with the newer films. They also recycled much quicker, given newer battery tech.
These days, I see wedding photographers mainly using flash as a fill light, given the high ISO performance of recent full-frame cameras. They don't bother with brackets any more, and just use the hot shoe.
A camera, or flash specialty company, could certainly re-introduce a powerhouse hammer handle flash unit today - but it would sell very poorly.
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
10-20-2020, 08:21 AM
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I remember when first hearing of the 645D that I thought it was a wasteful move for Pentax. Spending resources on developing a camera that would become a flagship almost no one would ever see, and few would be aware of. I really wanted to see Pentax grow their DSLR lineup to better compete in the APS-C and eventually FF market - but no, selling tens of MF cameras was considered more important.
I get it. Pentax had their pro-camera cred when they had their 645 and 67 lineups competing with the likes of Mamiya, Bronica, and Hasselblad. But MF these days is a very, very tiny share of the market. And now, that tiny share is being dominated by the drive to mirrorless, only just after Pentax launched their much improved 645Z. I think Pentax can be forgiven for letting MF slide and get on with trying to make their DSLR lineup more relevant in a "only mirrorless is cool" world.
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
10-20-2020, 08:10 AM
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Yes, Sunny 11 is often closer to the mark under most sunny day conditions. To get a full f16 over the shutter speed closest to ISO rating, you have to have an absolutely clear day, with very clear atmospherics. And the earth has to be at its closest to the sun - which is actually in January, I am told.
Around here, in Ontario, with a very clear crisp January day, I can get my light meter to show a fully Sunny 16 reading. About any other time, a half stop to a full stop is usually required.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-07-2020, 08:28 AM
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But if this was implemented, and worked well, what would we wonder about in bed awaiting sleep?
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Forum: General Photography
10-01-2020, 08:33 AM
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Aha! I think I have figured it out. With a bit more internet research, it turns out the third polarizer doesn't come after the first two, but must be inserted between them. I didn't get that from the initial video - which I think to most of us made it look like the last polarizer undid the cancelling actions of the first two.
So, to be clear, polarizers A and B are set to cancel each other out, then polarizer C is inserted between them at a forty-five degree angle and light is passed through.
However, this does seem a bit underwhelming - and not the "mind blowing" effect I thought I was seeing in the video.
Logically, polarizer A and C are at forty-five degrees, and so you get a half polarizing effect. Polarizer B at the back is another forty-five degrees rotated (at 90 to polarizer A) and you lose more light, but not all.
So, half of a half, is a quarter, and that looks like about what you get after the third polarizer.
I know, I get it. Theoretically, the rear polarizer should cancel out the front one entirely, but doesn't when there's another one in between. Still, it's a lot less magical than how it is presented in the video.
My gallery opening for landscapes taken with quantum entangled light has been cancelled.
---------- Post added 10-01-20 at 11:35 AM ----------
Actually, that's all a variable ND filter is. The trick is putting them into one thin frame so they don't vignette a wide angle lens.
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Forum: General Photography
10-01-2020, 07:49 AM
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I think I'm ready to call hoax on this. The video looks convincing, but I can't replicate what they're doing on my light table with three regular linear polarizers. Circular polarizers don't work at all for cancelling each other out.
And it makes some sense. Universities have spent big money firing single photons through slits in dark rooms to explore the quantum nature of light. If all they had to do was play with three ordinary polarizers to see quantum entanglement with the naked eye ... well, why wouldn't they?
Also, how have we not heard of this before? If all we had to do was stack three polarizers in front of our lenses - the front one at zero degrees, the middle one at ninety degrees, and the rear one at forty-five degrees, we could all have been making magical photos with quantum entangled light. I can see the gallery brochure now ... "Quantum Landscapes".
How would our pet photography look, or the leaves on our backyard trees look (favourite Pentax lens test targets) if our sensors were recording only quantum filtered light?
Sorry, but I just can't make it work. I put it out there to other Pentaxians to "peer review" the video and see if they can replicate the phenomenon. Is there something extra special about their setup? The polarizers are touted to be ordinary camera ones (again, circular polarizers cannot work in this experiment - but I tried them anyway). Is there something special about their light source? Or their camera?
But again, I come back the realization that I've been mucking about with polarizers for years, and I think I might have noticed if a third one cancelled out the effects of two others.
If anyone can enlighten me (or their polarizers) without video special effects, please let me know.
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Forum: General Photography
09-30-2020, 11:18 AM
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Well, I took three polarizers and tried this experiment on my light table.
Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, but I can't get it to work.
Once the first two are fully polarized, the third polarizer doesn't make anything lighter.
So ..... ?
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
09-24-2020, 08:25 AM
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Yes, best send it to someone with equipment and experience.
As for the "spot" not affecting image quality, I think it actually might.
Defects on the rearmost elements seem to be more detrimental to image quality than spots, dust and scratches up front. It's especially terrible on a wide angle, where a mark really scatters light on its way to the sensor or film, but I would a think a fast telephoto would benefit from a clarity in its rear elements as well.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
09-11-2020, 09:59 AM
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The one quirk I've found with the K1000 over the years, is that it's possible to load the film with the cartridge lips catching behind the pressure plate, and that causes stuttering film advance - and more than a few scratches on the resultant film.
I usually show beginners with the K1000 to make sure the film cartridge is sitting flat, with the film smooth across the film gate, before closing the door. Even experienced owners can make the error every once in awhile, and close the door with the cartridge up in the air a bit. Most cameras will press the cartridge down flat, but the K1000 can snag it behind the pressure plate.
However, the OP has had the camera some time, and is probably aware of this. So, yes, a rough film advance suggests service is needed, and hard-to-find parts may be needed.
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
09-01-2020, 01:21 PM
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I don't think agitation explains marks that only appear at frame edges. From what I can see from the one example shown, I might suspect a light reflection from the edge of the film gate. You also get similar things showing up on the very edges of prints made with a negative in a shiny edged film holder.
Interior surfaces in a camera need to be as non-reflective as possible - matte black, or flocked black surfaces help. Shiny black metal is still shiny. If you see a shiny surface or two right at the film gate (lock the shutter open on bulb to inspect it - not easy on a medium format camera. Multiple exposure mode can help) then reducing shiny surfaces with some matte black paint may indeed help.
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