Fedzilla: mil gracias, I read the thread. Now I know stuff I never knew before. I recall telling my daughter once that each day, "You should learn something you never knew before today."
She was twelve. Couple of days later she came home and said, "After school, on my way home, I watched these guys digging up the street and laying new sewer pipe. So I got talking to them." Whereupon I was subjected to a 20 minute dissertation on sewer pipe dimensions, new directions in sewer pipe design and couplings, and why some sewer pipes were colored green and some black. Now she's 25, and when she calls, sometimes she'll say, "Want to know what I learned today?"
One of, and perhaps THE most wonderful thing about RFF.
RML: As you well know, it is always a pleasure to hear from someone who actually has and uses whatever it is one is contemplating purchasing. The "bum" protrusion question has been laid to rest. As it appears to be a standard lens hood screw thread, and as I've got a ton of Super Takumar lenses and accessories, I think I can resolve the lens hood dilemma.
I'm venturing for the first time into lenses that most describe as having a "creamy smoothness," as you put it. Others use terms like "soft," and here I've spent a significant portion of my life on a quest for "sharp" lenses.
Some of my "sharp" acquisitions were so much so that, escpecially with portraits, I took a darning hoop, stretched panty hose across it and wiggled it slowly beneath the enlarger lens during an exposure to soften the image. Recommendation: If, for example, it's a 20 second exposure, do the panty hose during the final ten seconds. Creates a nice effect.
Ted
