Don Lopp

[erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Greg Erker)]

  Don called me Friday night and we talked
for about half an hour.  He said he is up
and walking about. Even working in the garden
but still has pain. The latest word from
his doctor is that the pain could last
months to a year (or was it 1/2 a year.
Not sure).

  He had to change doctors since the
original one cut him off morphine and
gave him some other drug which did nothing
at all. So he is back on morphine. He
says it is affecting his short term memory.
He tried to take some photos one day
and just got everything messed up
(with his twin Diacords I assume).

  He hadn't been aware the book was
from us. He said his wife unwrapped
it and there was no indication who it
was from. If true we should slap
Amazon up side the head :)

  He said he did enjoy it and that
the pictures are better quality (res.)
than the Civil War book he has.

  He said that my phone number and Stephen's
are the only two he had so that is why
he phoned us about the card. Perhaps we
should put a phone # list in the next
round of the folio so Don or others
can phone if desired. Whaddaya think?

  SK: Don kept pronouncing your name
like Steffen, whereas I pronounce it
like Steven. Which is correct?

  Don is shooting with two Diacords
one is an L (lightmeter model) and the
other is a G (no meter). He said he
went through 7 or 8 before getting matched
lenses. Doesn't bode well for you Bob :)
He does have shutter speed mismatches
between them so he has a big compensation
sheet to adjust the apertures to get
matching exposures.

  He asked me if Joel had mentioned
anything about the Sputnik viewfinder
he had sent him. Joel did you ever get
it? He says it frames very accurately
(to withing a few mm) and is a bright
line style finder. Sounded interesting.

  He figured that Stephen had gotten a
raw deal on his Sputnik that he got from
Don's son-in-law (Elliot Swanson I think).
It has something wrong with the rear lens
elements (missing?) and Elliot replaced
them with ones from Lubitels. But the
centering is way off and so the lenses
are terrible until f16. (I think thats
an accurate summary.)

  On the subject of stopping down he
figured that some lenses worked well
stopped down to f22 or f32 and others
didn't. This seems contradictory to
the res=1800/f# or whatever the lpmm
difraction limit is, but I didn't argue
with him. He mentioned that some Zeiss
lens only stopped down to f11. They
were being honest since it sucked at
f16. Anyone care to comment on this?

  He said he is exchanging slides with
someone in Germany (I've forgotten the
name). A guy who projects. He feels sorry
for the guy because he shoots with
a Heidoscope and the viewfinder is
so poor on them.

  Regarding the get well card he liked
the eyeball holograms from Gary.

  There was more said but that was
the majority of it.

Greg