I didn't, the minilab did :-) I took them with an ancient 35mm SLR. The minilab who processed the films offered to put them on CD-ROM for a little (very little) extra money. And I finally found an internet cafe that would let me upload said images (Yes, I do own a CR-ROM drive, but I don't have a fast connection.). The resolution on the film negatives is considerably higher than said scans, but IMHO they were good enough to upload. And of course I have the negatives if I want to make any larger prints. I'll stick to my good old mechnaical Leicas. The later one actually contains electrical components (the flash sync contacts), the older one has nothing electrical _at all_. -tony

I wish :-). I do have a scanning digital camera. actually. And it's on-topic here. It's got a linear CCD (I can't remember the resolution, around 2000 pixrls, I think) that's tracked across the frame on a leadscrew. it takes Nikon (35mm SLR) lenses. And it interfaces to a classic PERQ (yes, I have the interface card and software). One day I must get it working. Of course a classic PERQ is not exactlu portable, and the resolution (I would guess about 6 megapixels) was spectacular for the early 1980s, but not very good today. -tony

Given that this devices is limited-resolution (by today's standards) and monochrome only (both the CCD and the PERQ display), I wonder if it's going to be any better than shooting negative film and having the minilab burn a CD-ROM for me. The quality of my slides exceeds the resolution of this device... -tony

True enough. I susepct you'd have to do 3 scans and produce 3 files on the PERQ which you later combine into the colour image. Indeed I do. There is one problem. It's a DeVere 504 (5*4" neagtive carrier) with the Dichromat head. It's not small or light. And nor is the PERQ. And they are not close together (I deliberately arranged for the darkroom to be far from computers and tools). Whether I could use the head on its own, I suspect I could, and that's quite easy to move. [Yes, the head and timer do contain electronics. But it's all standard compoents (apart from transformers, etc), so I can repair it. ] Indeed. As I said, I will consider buying a digital camera when it exceeds the quality of my flim cameras. And as yopu may have guessed from my enlarger, I have large format film cameras... -tony

At 4:33 PM -0500 11/5/09, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: A Nikon D700 or the equivalent Canon would blow anything away that most of us with a large format camera could afford. For that matter I can't afford the CFV-39 back I'd like for my Hasselblad (plus adapters are available for view cameras). More megapixels, lower ISO range, but I believe the dynamic range is a bit better. Check out the backs from Hasselblad, Phase One, Sinar and Leaf. Basically you'd best be making serious $$$'s from the camera or else be so rich you can afford to drop $40-60k on a toy. Even if you can afford one something like one of the Mamiya 645 camera's is likely to be a better target for the back, since I think they're about the only thing you can get a full frame back on. What would be interesting is to build a large format camera around a scanner (people have done that). What would be even more interesting is someone doing a kit for this. :-) I'll stick with film for the foreseeable future. If I get the chance to pick one up cheap enough I'll think about it. I recently passed on a 6MP back for $600 that I could have used on my Hasselblad and 4x5 camera, but only tethered to a vintage Macbook. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

At 11:12 AM -0500 11/6/09, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: What I'd like to know is what backs offer a larger sensor size than the medium format backs. The "Better Light" scanning backs look to be 3"x4", and are the largest I've been able to find. Just about every back I've seen will work on various MF and LF cameras depending on the adapter used. The real purpose of putting one on a LF back seems to get the camera movements. I can't help but wonder if a better purchase wouldn't be a drum scanner. For me personally a digital back for my 4x5 doesn't make sense, as I need negatives, not digital images for what I have it for. OTOH, a good digital back for my Hasselblad might make sense, if nothing else if the price was right and the specs were good enough, it would be fun to play with. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:33:14 -0500 Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: Please note that I am talking about scanning backs. They produce in excess of 100 MegaPixels. There are some special scanning cameras also. Most of the time they are 180 or 360 degree panoramic cameras. If you are talking about non-scanning backs, then you have a 2D CCD as found in conventional digital cameras. Just a bit larger. Most likely it would be better to use a Hasselblad H3 or Leica S2 instead of a 2D CCD on a large format camera. The H3 is at 50 MP IIRC. Today a 2D CCD on a large format camera makes only sense if you absolutely need extreme camera movements. On-topc, i.e. 10+ years, scan backs can do what todays high end 2D CCD can do. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/

At 8:49 PM +0000 10/29/09, Tony Duell wrote: Here in the US, Costco does a great job in 1 hour and the CD's are far less than it would cost me in time to the scans myself. Look around, different places scan at different resolutions and charge different prices. The place I had develop a roll of B&W and scan them provided scans that were to low-res to even use online. Costco's scans on the other hand can be used for 8x10 enlargements (I've done this with great results). I'm now developing my own 35mm B&W film and scanning it, as I haven't been happy with the results from the local pro labs. I'm still having them do the 120 and 4x5 since I can't scan those. They seem to do best with 4x5 oddly enough. The biggest advantage to your old mechanical Leica's is that your 50mm Leica lens is a 50mm. On the Micro 4/3rds it would basically be a 100mm telephoto. I'd like a Leica and am torn between the M6 or M7 as I like a built in light meter on my 35mm cameras. At 5:17 PM +0100 11/1/09, Jochen Kunz wrote: I'd rather have one of these for my Hasselblad 500CM than my 4x5. Someone locally was offering one recently that could be used on a Hasselblad or 4x5 for $600, I was definitely tempted, but it was tethered to an ancient PowerBook, AND it was only 6MP. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

Tony Duell wrote: ?2 for a "Standard Resolution" CD. For ?4 they should be able to do a "High Resolution" or "Supersize" CD (the terminology depends on who you ask -- old-timers will call it supersize, the "in the middle" group call it 'high resolution', the newbies just give you a blank stare). The difference is that the images on the standard CD are 2 or 3 megapixels -- basically thumbnail size, and good for printing to (maybe) 7x5 at a push. On the hi-res CD, the scanner resolution is increased to "12x8" (it's based on the target image size, not DPI), which equates to (if memory serves) about 10 megapixels. You can push the newer machines higher -- the newer Fuji Frontier570 systems can do "18x12" scanning and printing, which (again IIRC) is about 20 megapixels. It also takes the best part of 40 minutes to scan a 36-exposure strip of 35mm film... I think I'll be keeping my Minolta 5400 Elite around for a while yet. It really does pay to get to know the lab techs -- there are things that the machines can do (or be made to do) that aren't necessarily on the service lists, or they are on the list but the frontline staff don't know about them. The big one is having stuff printed with "auto-correct" off -- the Fuji Frontiers have an automatic colour correction system that completely FUBARs just about any image that's been fed through Photoshop and had colour-correction applied (though it can screw up some digital camera images too). IME most lab techs know about this (it makes orange/red sunsets go *green*!) and also know how to switch the stupid thing off... It also pays to find a lab that follows the maintenance schedules to an insane degree. The Jessops labs I've put prints / negs through have always been well-maintained (again, the "get to know your lab guy" point) but I've seen some pretty shocking things at other high-street chains... And again -- high-street labs can do it, it just takes longer (and sometimes involves asking the person that's actually running the lab). There's generally one or two people in a given store that know the lab machinery inside-out, back-to-front and from behind -- the sort of people who can tell you not only what the component parts of ID-11 are but also how it differs from D76 and how to mix it from scratch. Ideally you want to talk to one of those people :) Is there anything you won't strip to pieces and/or (at least attempt to) repair? :) -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

Zane H. Healy wrote: You unfortunately don't get the same option with Jessops, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you generating an ICC profile using a Spyder3Print calibrator/colorimeter -- there are two TIFF files in Program Files\Spyder3Print that contain the profile targets. Print these at 12x8 or so (larger prints = easier to scan) then feed them through the S3 software. The Fuji machines have a colorimeter bolted onto the top, and do an automatic colour calibration ("Paper Condition Check") on startup, when the paper magazine is refilled, and 10 days after the paper was last checked. This generally means that the ICC profiles are valid until major work is done on the printer -- a new laser or something along those lines. There's another step above this, too -- external monitoring. Fuji UK offer a service whereby a lab can send a "Control Strip" off for analysis, then get a report back showing the condition of the process chemistry, and any recommendations (e.g. "P1 activity low, add 10ml concentrate to P1 tank"). It's usually done on a fortnightly or monthly cycle depending on the specific location. Yeah, that's always fun. On the older Frontiers (350 and 370 series), XP2 is a pain to print. On the newer machines (570 and later) you just select "Image Source", then "B&W Negative". Very little -- I've spent most of my time working with the Fuji Frontier machines (a 350, a 370 and a 570). I doubt it. Usually the scans are done through fixed-width 35mm masks. Basically, the scanner consists of a lightbox in the base (Cold Cathode fluorescent in the 300 series, LED in the 570 series), a scanner assembly (auto-feeder or manual feeder) and a CCD scanner plus optics in the top. The negative sits inside a black metal mask -- this prevents light from spreading outside the 24x36mm frame... which prevents you from scanning anything other than (at best) the full frame. What you can (sort of) do is get some medium-thick card (about 200gsm), make up a secondary mask for the film (think "cardboard slide mount"), then use a 120 (medium format) feeder and mask to scan it. The problem is, most high-street labs won't have the 120-size masks on account of cost.. last time I checked, the 120 manual-feed mask was about ?900. Another question from right in the middle of my area of expertise! We've got a regular customer at work who has a Stereo Realist. Basically, he has the individual frames (i.e. the 'left' and 'right' frames) printed separately as 6x4s. Obviously the images are "4x4" square ratio, but when printed on 6x4 paper they're the right size for his 3D viewer. As I recall, he cut down the "frame plus border left and right" images, then glued each pair (left/right) together to fit the viewer. If you wanted them printing as 4x4in, it is possible to do that on a Frontier (and should be possible on a Noritsu QSS or Agfa d-Lab). Basically, you have to set up a custom paper size in the Setup menu -- the catch is you need the Admin password to do this. It doesn't take long to calculate the figures needed, but there are limitations. Most notably, one dimension needs to equal a paper size the lab has. So if you want (say) 4"x9", the lab needs to have either 4" or 9" paper in the print finish you want. For reference, our standard paper "selection" is: 102mm (4"), glossy only 127mm (5"), glossy, lustre and premium (pearl-effect, I've been told it's a bit like "Cibachrome" or "Ilfochrome") 152mm (6"), glossy, lustre and premium (pearl-effect, I've been told it's a bit like "Cibachrome" or "Ilfochrome") 254mm (10"), glossy and lustre 305mm (12"), glossy and lustre The 102mm (4") paper is generally only used for APS (Advanced Photo System) printing. One useful print size the printers can do with the factory configuration is 7.5x5" -- a bit larger than a 7x5 print, but at the same aspect ratio as a 35mm frame, so no cropping on the sides. I tried to fix my Minolta 5400 film scanner before I sent it in -- stripped it to bits, cleaned all the detection sensors, reflex mirror (which was caked in dust) and CCD, then ended up replacing a few of the motor drive chips on the PCB (some of the stepper motors weren't moving properly). No dice, still wouldn't work... I got it back last week -- the repair note just says "Replaced main PCB, checked, cleaned and tested." I figure one of the AVISION controller chips probably packed in... But anyway, it's behaving itself now. I've just bought some Ilford film, ID-11 developer and other darkroom kit -- I'm planning to start doing a bit of B&W work again. XP2 (Ilford colour-process B&W film) is fine for what it is, but sometimes it's more fun to play with older technology. I'm sure most of you can appreciate that :) -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

On Mon, 2 Nov 2009, Tony Duell wrote: Need one? Or Minox? or Tessina? Some of the EARLIEST Minoltas were imitation Leicas. I stumbled on one yesterday when I was looking through M39 (Leica screw mount) and C-mount lenses to use on my soon to arrive Micro Four Thirds. I am actively looking for 1/2" and 1" QUALITY C-mount lenses (the Goerz and Leitz C-mount lenses seem to be out of my price reach) Any needs for a Leica lens mount Minolta? (Should I get it out and check its condition?)

Pentax 110's and Exakta's are my favorites. rog

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009, Tony Duell wrote: I assume you mean 4x6.5cm? ;-) 120 = 6cm while 127 = 4cm I activelly shoot 120, and need to buy a roll or two of B&W 127 as I want to see if the Yashica 44LM I have still works. The Exactas are interesting looking camera's, I ran across a book on them recently. I really like the results you can get with some of the really old lenses. Zane

Recently, I found a late variant Exakta VX which needs at least a CLA. I love U Surplus. :) Anyone know a good Exakta repair/restore guy? De

:) I'm not entirely comfortable with precision mechanicals, but I may break down and have a go. Are you familiar with Miles Upton's book? Not cheap, but if it's as good as some people think, might be worth it. I'm pretty sure I don't want to do curtains myself. It'll be a bit before I have time to dive into this project, so don't go digging just yet. De

_How_ one mis-spent it seems to be key. "Ultimate Exakta Repair". Self published. http://www.exaktaphile.com/vx2ar/book.html I'll have a look at those, then. Thanks! :) Note that I said "not entirely comfortable", not "flipping lunatic lacking basic technical clue". De

pentax 110's are such a fine example of Japanese engineering. I have two VP's. one black one chrome exakta 11a's and b's and a VX1000.. And behind them are the Periflex's another unusual design! Enough of this, we are waaaaaay off topic!!

Tony it is of no surprise.. After following numerous posts i have gathered you have probably the UK's largest collection of interesting bits and pieces and could easily trump my feeble collection!! LOL of course, you forgot to mention the periflex's innovative and cheap glass film back! I met Sir Ken Corfield a few years back.. a very interesting bloke! Roger

Tony Duell wrote: Sounds like the guy we had out to deal with a startup error on our digital printer (Fuji Frontier 570). Basically, the machine is a combination of a modified laser printer and a normal 'wet' minilab print processor -- RGB lasers "print" on the paper, then it's developed as normal (develop, bleachfix, then a couple of wash tanks). We've been having a few problems with it -- missing lines on the back-print, and (more seriously) the machine not warming the tanks up on a morning. That last one is pretty terminal -- it takes two hours to bring the tanks up to ~45C (working temperature) from room temperature (!) Anyway, the guy arrives and the first thing he asks: "Have you got a copy of the service manual?" As I see it, he had a laptop with him, and had no valid excuse for not having a PDF of the S/M with him... So he digs through our heavily annotated "operator-level service manual" (which for >80% of the error messages lists "contact your technical representative" as the only solution), umms and aahs a little, then asks to borrow a screwdriver.... After about 45 minutes he's finally gained access to the machine, after stripping one of the screws and losing another, and re-seats the loose connector that's causing the error. The printer is duly powered up, and it doesn't flag an error with the wiring. I then pose a question. "At the end of last week, we did the 6-monthly maintenance and scrubbed the wash tanks out. It took three times the amount of stabiliser before the level sensor picked up that there was actually something in the wash tanks. Is that normal?" I pointed out the bit in the maintenance manual regarding the wash tank level sensors -- "If the concentration level is insufficient, then the tank level sensors will not detect the wash fluid". His response: "Huh. I didn't know the level sensors depended on the concentration level." I'm not complaining (because the machine is working to spec now, after three engineer visits) but I seriously wondered if we'd been sent the trainee, sans his mentor. I have no problem with his lack of experience (everyone has to start somewhere) but not bringing even a basic toolkit is pretty silly IMO. Even my rather hefty CK ratchet screwdriver is small enough to put in even a small briefcase or backpack... Here, here! Too true. There are a lot of Olympus OM4s that are starting to suffer spec, or the camera just up and dies) and you just can't get new parts for them any more. There's something to be said for simple, all-mechanical designs. From what I've been told, the quality took a nosedive in the mid-90s/'00s span... same as most things, really. -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009, Tony Duell wrote: The question that comes to mind is, is they guy a Fuji employee, or does he work for a third party support outfit? A certain company, before they got bought buy another company had thier support contracted out to a certain three letter company in the computer field. The original guy this company would send out is competent, even if this isn't his area of expertiese. The second guy was a total waste of space, even worse he had to be escorted in our computer room while he "Troubleshot" the hardware. So I'd waste half a day while he was on the phone with the Vendor. He'd order the replacement part, and I wouldn't even tell him when it came in, I'd just fix it myself. The best was the device we got totally refurbished because of his incompetence. The only thing wrong was a switch, but he replaced *EVERY* major part before figuring that out! :-) Finally the company started sending out thier own people, and they know what they're doing. Zane

Tony Duell wrote: "'Ere, Bob, pass'us that 'ammer." "Why, Jim?" "Bloody oilpan bolt's stuck. Needs sum per-sa-shin!" "A'ight then.." *WHACK* *WHACK* *BAM* *WHACK* *CLANG* At which point Jim realises he's been trying to turn the bolt the wrong way, and has now ruined both the bolt-head and the threads. The air turns blue... Then he realises it's a customer's car anyway, and all of a sudden it's Not A Problem (tm). The job form is filled out as "Oil change done", and the customer leaves happy... until 1,000 miles later when the engine seizes up (or the bolt drops out in the middle of the road). There are some people I wouldn't touch near a paperclip, much less a screwdriver. Actually, the "operator level" service manual is included with the machine... or at least the Operator Level manual and parts diagram are. There's (just) enough info in the 570 OLS Manual and Parts/Wiring Diagram book to narrow down most faults to a given PCB. There aren't any schematics, but you can do PCB-swaps. Better than nothing if you've got another machine to cannibalise parts from... Consuming oxygen? Actually, do servoids do that? Wouldn't have thought respiration was necessary for droids... I could probably do the same -- Fluke 25 DMM, spare battery, CK toolkit, Antex 660TC soldering station, and my "cheap and made of monkey-metal" 'Pro'sKit' mini-screwdriver (good for small devices where the CK kit is too big). The CK also includes a full set of "Anti-Tamper" Torx bits (which will screw and unscrew both common types of Torx bit), a few hex bits and some sockets (VERY useful for realigning Sky dishes, even when the bolts have rusted). I usually bring an ASUS Eee 1000H netbook, Ericsson K800i (GSM triband mobile with 3G data and USB) with me as well -- on the basis that I can then connect to my home server (or anywhere else on t'internet for that matter) and grab any PDFs I might need. Saves dragging reams of paper around. So that'll be the OM-1 series then, but they weren't pure-mechanical.The aperture priority metering still needs 2x SR44 coin cells to run. Also, the motor drive (if you have one) needs 4x AAs. Full-mechanical? A Minox maybe? Or probably a Stereo Realist (which has been mentioned elsethread). -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

Yes. Pentina, my cat (or more exactly the cat who chooses to live with me). I don;t know enough to do so without fatal results. Pentina cameras are another matter, of course. Those I am happy to repair. -tony

Oh, it most certainly is. After all, we have people called 'vets' who do this. But unlike electronic/mechanical repair, it's difficult to be self-taught in this. If I make a mistake stripping a classic computer, I can put it right. If I make a mistake repairing Pentina the cat, I can't. (Cats, and most other living things seem to have volatile memory for all the firmware, and there's no way to back it up or restore the backup. So if you make a mistake and manage to erase said memory, that's it :-() -tony

Tony, Philip, For what it's worth I saw a problem like this too with the flickr.com search at first. If you bring up the site with www.flickr.com and put in tony_duell for the search you will get the "We couldn't find anything matching your search " page. If you then note that on the line with Search there are three words over what should now be a box with "tony_duell" in it, there are the words Photos Groups People. if you click People, it will find tony_duell and the photos. I don't know if there is a single step way to do the search, but this works. Jim Philip Pemberton wrote:

Hmmm. Obviosuy I don't understand the workings of flickr... Try searching for 'hp9820' (no quotes). That should find some of my pictures, adn I think you can then look for others by that user name. -tony

On 02/11/2009 23:00, Philip Pemberton wrote: What I have on Flickr is mostly pictures other people wanted to look at for various reasons (like my niece's graduation ball) but half a dozen have been requested for publications, including two classiccmp-related photos. Of course there are a whole lot more like them that I should upload in my copious spare time... http://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103 -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York