Re: Mistake

[P3D <ThomGillam@xxxxxxx>]

IN PRAISE OF REALIST PRINTS

Now that I've finally gotten caught up reading the digest (boy, it's
amazing how far behind you get in a week, and how many days it takes to
close on the ever-receding train) I feel the thread "Mistake" which had
a too, too, brief life a few digests ago requires that someone whose
PRIMARY format of choice is PRINTS speak (write?, right?) up and set some
kind of balance to all the slide people on this list.  Wolfie, get those
negatives printed, get some Q-VUs (pre-cut  Holmes' style print mounts,
available from:  Q-VU, Quentin Burke, P.O.Box 55, Holtville, CA 92250)
and join the many satisfied practitioners of one of stereo's oldest and
most venerated formats!

That having been said, it's only fair to fill you in on some of the
pitfalls you might encounter along this road.

FIRST, it is not EASY to get prints made from your  realist' format
negatives (but as Tom Hanks' character said in "A League of Their Own" -
"If it was EASY everybody would do it!").  Most processors today use
automatic print machines made for  normal' 35mm (read 8 perf) cameras, and
have trouble dealing with 5 perf negatives, because there is an 8 perf mask
through which the exposure is made.  Some labs, but not all, have an
additional 4 perf, half-frame mask (interchangeable with the 8P).  Don't
look to have your Nimslo negatives printed readily, either, unless you find
a lab with this mask!

What you are likely to get, if you can convince the lab to print, are
3-1/2"x5" or 4"x6" prints which contain your 5P negative along with portions
of adjacent negatives on either side.  USUALLY, this means that the
automatic exposure compensation done by the machine is (a) wrong for your
negative, having been thrown off by the inclusion, and - guess what - (b)
DIFFERENT than the ALSO erroneous exposure made for the other half of your
pair!

Now, the operator has some ability to override the automatic settings, but
she must start FROM those settings: there is NO absolute scale at which the
machine can be set from exposure to exposure.  Sometimes she can get it
right, mosttimes not. Ya pays yer money an' ya takes yer chances.  They may
reprint a few for free, but this road soon gets old, and they will no
longer think your  oddball' business is worth their aggravation.  And
they'll be right.

Is, then, the situation without hope?

continued...


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End of PHOTO-3D Digest 1646
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