Re: Quiet Again

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sam wrote:
>
> I guess you guys are all out shooting tons of MF stereo shots,
> there's no time for gabbing on the internet!
> 

Well I've been playing around my Yashicamat 124G trying to get used to
it and it's light meter.  I haven't decided yet if the meter is
accurate and I'm just not used to how it works or if it's wildly off.
I've been using a Penax digital spot meter for the last few years
(with my 4x5 stuff) and may not be used to dealing with a meter that
isn't through the lens or narrow angle.  The other thing complicating
matters is that it's difficult to get mercury batteries, so I started
with an alkyline battery (which I've since heard throws the meter off
both because of voltages levels and decay rate) and recently switched
to one of the S-76 battery adapters.

I've also been trying to learn how to use a flash.  I've always used
high speed film and natural light before.  I've been shooting test
images, but I'm behind on my darkroom work.

I have decided that I won't get a second Yashicamat for twinning.
Dealing with the film crank on my flash bracket is enough of a pain
(I'm a righty and can not comfortably hold the camera with my left
hand) that I don't think it's worth the effort.  I have been doing
some slide bar work with it though.

> Where's the Folio these days? Is it coming my way any time soon?
> Seems 5A has been out there for years.
> 

Beats me (I'm not in the folio).

With the recent introductions from new members on the list perhaps we
can discuss starting a second folio.  I had mentioned this a while
ago, but at the time there weren't enough people to get it started.

In the meantime I've shown my stuff at the New York Stereoscopic
Society and anyone else I can corner.  :)

We had a lot of fun showing my stuff to the three year old daughter of
my friends and having her describe what she saw.  At least it kept her
out of her mother's hair while she was dealing with their infant son.
:)

> Has anyone used one of these newfangled HP Slide attachments for
> scanners yet?
> 

I recently got an Artec Scanrom 4e for about $100 mailorder.  It scans
up to 4x6 originals.  The scanner software only knows how to deal with
prints and slides (positive orignals), but most image manipulation
software can deal with B&W negatives, and probably color negatives
too.  I find that the B&W negatives seem to work best, but I just may
not have enough patience to deal with color manipulation.  The scanner
uses a parallel port (with pass through) to connect to a PC.  I don't
know if there's a Mac version of the software.  The optical resolution
is 400x400dpi.  It's good enough for web use.  Because the scanner is
connected to my wife's PC I haven't had much time to rescan most of my
images and I can't rescan any of the 8x10s.  The one (flat) example I
currently have on my web page can been seen at:

<URL:http://www.panix.com/~reynolds/photography/pinhole/greenmarket.html>

The bottom of the page has a comparison between a scan of an 8x10
print using a HP Deskjet 3c and xv for image processing and the 4x5
negative using the Scanrom and The Gimp software for image processing.
I did not make much effort to match the images to each other.  I
simply made the images look the best I could to suit my tastes (which
have changed a bit since I first started doing these scans).

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Humans explore the Universe with five
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              |   senses and call the adventure science."
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds/ | - Edwin P. Hubble