RE: 220 VR questions

[Brigitte Sulser <bsulser@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Bill

How come you buy a camera first and afterwards complain about the quality of
the results? Was there no way of renting one and judge the quality of the
pictures at that time before taking out a second mortgage and buy a
Roundshot? When buying a Rolls Royce I'm not expecting it to have the same
top speed as a Ferrari. How big would your enlargement be? I usually have
mine enlarged to 30 cm (I leave the conversion to you) tall and whatever it
results wide (could be more than two meters). Yes, they are not as sharp as
my Sinar pictures when my nose touches the print. (But then: do I have a
Sinar picture 2 meters wide?)

As to the very.... very short answers from Peter Seitz I have to defend my
fellow countryman: we Swiss are less inclined to eloquence as other nations
might by....

Regards
Stephan Sulser
http://stsulser.virtualave.net


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Glickman [mailto:bglick@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 9:14 PM
To: Panorama-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: 220 VR questions


Hi, I am new to the Pan list...

     I just bought a Seitz 220 VR.  I have been testing it for the past week
and trying to perfect the use of it before I leave on a long Photo trip on
6/16.  I have the followings issues that possibly more experienced users
could be so kind to assist me.

1.  The h value (H-H) which seems to be the distance between the two nodal
points of the lens.... this information seems impossible to get for the
Mamiya 645 lenses.  Seitz does not know the values and Mamiya either won't
release the information or does not comprehend exactly what is being asked.
I am wondering why Seitz even designed and released the Mamiya lens board
when these values are unknown by them?  Peter Setiz recommended using the
Hassy values which are in the manual, however, the variance in lens makers
values for equal fl lenses for this value varied so much between the 35mm
lenses, like Nikon, Leica, etc.... I felt doing this would be a total random
guess which could be so far off it would make things worse?

2.  Does this h value offer no benefit when subjects are far?

3.  Mr. Seitz explains the need to nail the fl of each lens down to +/- .05
mm.   With my 150 and 300 mm this process was tedious but, it seems to have
worked.  I shot a wall about 150 ft. away.  I measured the aspect ratio of
the wall, and then measured the vertical height on film and calc. what the
horizontal needs to be to maintain the same aspect ratio.  This was fairly
effective.  However, on wider angle lenses, 80 and 35mm, this was not so
easy... image distortion makes measurements too difficult to be this
accurate.  Mr. Seitz said shoot letters.... so I shot letters on buildings,
the largest letters I could find.... and it is way too difficult to
determine within .05mm which letters look best.... they all look good when
you get down to a few tenths of a mm?

4.  The test images I shot all appear soft on film.  I was a disappointed
with the image quality.  It did not come close to what a MF camera can
produce.  Do other people experience this also?  I was told by a few users
that rotational cameras are not that sharp for the obvious reasons.  Mr.
Seitz said a MF lens will never be as sharp on a rotational camera vs. a
still camera?  I am wondering how much worse the image really gets.  Does
using smaller slits help?  Any input on this would be helpful...  I was
planning on big enlargements, and now am doubting the possibility of doing
such.

           Thank you for any help you can offer.  This experience is turning
out to quite a circus act so far...  Although Peter Seitz has emailed me,
his answers are very very very short and sometimes inconclusive.... that is
making this process go on for a longer time than it should.

Regards
Bill G