New York February NYC Meet-Up/ Tenth Annual Camera Beauty Contest

Nokton48 said:
Calzone said:
All the Linhof stuff is kinda modular. Pretty much I'm playing around as if I have Lego Blocks.
That's exactly how I designed the Norma Handy to my exact wants and needs. Schneider 47mm XL is Uber wide as you can go, he has one. Also he can CAD and CNC which puts you in the driver's seat.
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Dan,

Christian is a mighty clever devil.

I have to dig out of my warehouse (Public Storage) the Leica Helicoil and spacers that Chris gifted me.

It really pays to have mucho obsessive friends. LOL. Clever devils included.

I can only imagine if I was a camera nerd back when I worked at Grumman. There I had mucho resources and worked with mucho clever guys. I had access to tool makers and a CNC shop.

Instead I put a Corvette Engine in a 1984 Jeep Scrambler and pretty much created an urban assault vehicle way before they invented the Hum-Vee.

Cal
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Nokton48 said:
Linhof Techars Here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=lin...BAgJEAE&biw=1352&bih=653#imgrc=gIMnrCEEfBr7MM

Kewl cameras :)
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Dan,

Thanks for the link.

I own a Plaubel 69 W "Proshift." This is a really nice 6x9 that shoots 120 and allows shifts with a 21mm FOV. It has a Schneider 47/5.6 Super Augulon.

I am interested in the Schnieder 47mm XL for the mucho huge image circle. This might be too mucho wide for me if 4x5. would be interesting for 6x9 and 6x7.

What would the FOV be in 4x5?

Thanks in advance.

Cal
 
I've never had a 47mm that covers. The 47mm f5.6 dosents, it vignettes in all four corners. But the 47mm f5.6 XL will do.

My Norma Handy with the 65mm F8 is like a humungeous Leica, with the 21mm F3.4 chrome Super Angulon, which darkens the corners in the Leica slightly. I really like that. My Handy is also like that, but on steroids. 21mm 35mm FOV is about right on that.

Prolly the 47mm would be about 17mm 35mm FOV or thereabouts.
 
jsrockit said:
I need a list of winners and trades that went down... ;)
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John,

It wasn't a traditional type of Beauty Contest, and perhaps it was more of a show and tell combined with a free for all swap meet in a bit of a spin off of last years huge pile of gear (two boxes of gear that was brought over the course of two meet-ups) donated by Chris.

Our friend Jim brought a crew from Philly, although one new face was from NYC. People just helped themselves to the pile I laid out on the table. I included some leather just in case someone wanted to sew up a bag or recover a camera in soft green suede.

I bought a brand new basketball, never used, from ACME Studios, just to get rid of it. Pretty much if you can imagine a luxury bsketball.

When Sam arrived I just handed over the Grand Prize to him, even before he pulled out any gear. Last year I asked Sam how many cameras he had and he mentioned about 300. This year it seems that he traded up for quality and rarity and only has about 200 cameras.

"Snarky Joe" brought in a minty F3P that he sniped from KEH for no money, just to torment me. Pretty much if it had the box you could sell it as new. I told Joe, "You suck" because that camera had you suck factor, especially for me.

The trick camera was the "M3" promoted as needing some TLC offered by Sam, but this was never advertised as a Leica M3. This "M3" was some off brand that also carried a Red Dot. Kinda funny how it fooled us.

Joe brought in a really nice black paint Leica III this that slow pancake 28mm Hector lens with an even more unusual Leica 28mm external VF'er that had this flip up prism. A novel feature that made us think why?

I mentioned that I "day-traded" with Sam and got a really clean black paint Leica III from 1933 with a 50/3.5 Elmar. A bit of a time machine, and I believe that the Never-Ready case it came with was responsible for its ultra-UBER clean condition. Obviously an obsessive owner. LOL.

Of course when Joe offered the free Linhof Color Kardan I took it. Then I secured this project to create a Linhof "Handy" like camera from Christian. Pretty much I was a "Camera Whore" that you had labeled me as.

Likely not so competitive and more of a gear share this year. Lots of small free-B's. The Camera that was the Grand Prize was cool. Maggie had bought this tine point and shoot digital that was about the size of a pack of cigaettes, but half the thickness. It came with an extra battery, the charger, the Nikon case, and I even believe the instructions. Pretty much a vintage digital camera.

I gave Bernard a Leica magazine from LHSA that had a review about the new recreation from China of the 35 Cron 8-Element. RFF was mentioned. It seems Jim pre-ordered one, and Bernard will be following.

Joe brought in this panoramic camera. I was surprised in how light weight it was. Mighty cool. Sam also bought in a motorized panoramic camera of sorts.

Then it was like a camera show where Sam share some of his collection. All amazing stuff that of course is rare and also in pristine condition. Of interest was this Zeiss Hologon 18mm that Sam converted to M-Mount. He even had the center filter. Of course he also had the box at home.

Then there was all the camera smut.

I brought my SL2, my SL and my SL2-MOT. I was amazed that the APO 35 Cron-L close focuses to about a foot. The SL2 with the APO 35 Cron is a real hyper fast shooter. The resolution is also pretty amazing. On top of all that the layout and controls are UBER streamlined in a remarkable manner.

If Leica ever makes a SL2-Monochrom...

Sorry for the repetition. It was a really pleasent and relaxing meet-up. No fighting this time. LOL.

Cal
 
missed it , could not find the location, arghhh


May I suggest when there is a meetup
IN BOLD LETTERS : just have one Message with the
DATE
LOCATION
TIME

that would be Grand....
Sometimes it's hard to find with these long diary style stories...lol
Thank You !
 
helenhill said:
missed it , could not find the location, arghhh


May I suggest when there is a meetup
IN BOLD LETTERS : just have one Message with the
DATE
LOCATION
TIME

that would be Grand....
Sometimes it's hard to find with these long diary style stories...lol
Thank You !
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Helen,

Joe made the suggestion where I place the meet-up location, time and place in an first post in bold as an edit.

With all the postings and comments, and vistiors from Italy, Ohio and Finland included it surely gets confusing.

Then there are many of my colorful rants...

Cal
 
Nokton48 said:
I think the Handy and Technar Lens cones were "extruded". But could be CNC'ed out of a big block of aluminum. Matt Abelson does crazy cams like that.

Check out Sneebot and his crazy stuff. Really badass

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sneebot
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Wow, these are unbelievable...
I wish I had a workshop with CNC ability, but all I do is send out for 3d printing.
 
CNNY said:
Wow, these are unbelievable...
I wish I had a workshop with CNC ability, but all I do is send out for 3d printing.
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Devil Christian,

I lament... For 17 years I worked for the 4th largest aerospace company in the U.S. I knew many talented people, and pretty much could have had anything built.

I knew this guy who built a Miget race car out of titanium tubing. This car had to make up for a rather heavy Mazda rotory engine. Guess where the titanium tubing came from?

I heard stories of log spliters made from hydrolic actuators from a F-14. My friend Joe designed and built a wood chipper. The only thing he bought was the 4 horsepower gas motor from a industrial supply company.

Back then everybody had side projects that were called "G-Jobs" short for "Government Jobs" but meaning personal work.

My friend "Dennis The Menace" was a Harley Davidson biker dude. He bought a 1963 "Police Special" that had a bike like seat and saddlebags. Pretty much he restored and processed the Harley though Plant 2 where we worked. He had to buy the paint (Midnite Blue). The paint was "baked" in an oven the size of an airplane hangar.

This bike looked like the bike from the Who's "Quadraphenia."

Pretty much this was all taxpayer's money, was the culture (stealing), and was a company benefit.

Now imagine there were 30K employees working at Grumman and it was the largest employer on Long Island, and everyone doing this.

My friend Jack went to a Grumman Garage sale and basically bought a used solar water heating system that was made by Grumman for no money. Perhaps he bought it for $200.00.

I remember buying a drafting table for $10.00. Wish I still had it because it was really nice.

Oh-the good old days when we had the Cold War.

Cal
 
Joe,

The "wonky" film holder and hood back is now totally disassembeled for parts.

When I did the forensics I discovered that under the leatherette is a plastic piece that is broken. The other broken parts are long gone. Oh-well.

No harm done because "lucky Calvin" has a spare that came from Christian's Linhof/handy part build-up. His is an evil black version which I like.

No sweat in the missing hood because the rear hood I can borrow from the 4x5 Linhof Tech IV/V I secured form Christian (his old 4x5 that he built up from a car-cuss that displays this wonderful worn leather patina).

So the rear film holder is now broken into two halves. The innermost section that mounts into the frame ends up being a nice 1 cm spacer that seems well suited to be adapted and used instead of a thin flat lensboard.

Design wise it looks more CNC and symetrically looks like and matches the back instead of being just a flat panel like a lensboard.

Also this allows me to save the lensboard for use on the Kardan Color 45S as a monorail 4x5.

I already have a Schnieder 90/6.8 Super Augulon that came with Christian's 4x5 Tech IV/V. It needs a cleaning and the shutter to be retimed at Nippon Photo Clinic (Now the new Linhof repair service center.). This is a 28mm FOV equiv or so in 4x5.

My idea is to forgo a helicoil and basically fix the focus at 7 feet like I often do on a film Leica stopped down to F5.6. This effectively creates a "Kill-Zone" of about 4 1/2 feet to 10 feet, but in 4x5 I figure I have to stop down to about F-16 to get the same DOF.

I'm O.K. with a fixed focus because this 4x5 will be specialized for street. Also will have to shoot fast film. How cool is that? Pretty much from mostly recycled gear and stuff I have just laying around.

I looked into using the helicoil that Chris gifted me a year ago. It is part of some Leica slide copier that is mucho strange. Includes a lamphouse and and these extension tubes.

I own a boxed BEOON that I pulled out last night. Pretty much specialized for using a M to copy negatives, but of course in a Calzone manner I want to use my SL2 because of the 47.3 MP sensor and also to exploit tethering to a spare computer, but of course this opens up a set of problems.

Last night I also looked into using my Nikon 55/2.8 Macro with extension tube and slide copier attachment as a negative holder on my SL. If it works on the SL it will work on the SL2. The assembly is about a foot long, and still my negative gets cropped. Evidently all this is optimized for slides.

So now more and more it seems the home brew Linhof Kardan 45S conversion makes sense, but what also is too cool is that can also be converted back into a 4x5 monorail camera so easily. All I got to do is borrow parts from my Linhof 4x5 and my 4x5 "Kill-Zone" camera.

I worked for about an hour today and pretty much my work day is done. I have all this Linhof parts that I'm playing around with in a big day-dream. Kinda like an UBER driver who makes one run to the airport but gets paid as if he worked hard all day.

I have friends from Austria that live in NYC that named their business UBER way before UBER became UBER. Pretty much a graphics designer and a sister who is a jeweler is involved in litigation with UBER over the rights, my friends own the name and trademark, but they don't have the money, time and resources to fight a huge company, even though they have legal rights.

UBER hates them. LOL. You can't make this stuff up.

Seems like I'm going to have to rig my SL2 with a crazy flash. Looks like I have a gig to take a head and shoulder's shot of Maggie every day for 60 days for some UBER high end cosmetic company that pretty much was started by a Nobel Prize winning Chemist. Controlled lighting is required and pretty much I either have to do this shooting either before or after work.

A while back Maggie was invited to a private Gala held at the MET by this brand.

Kind of funny how the Flash rig I want to assemble is like the one used at the SL2 Launch that was held at the Leica Store SoHo. Basically a camera mounted controller and two point lighting using a strobed flash and another diffused light.

In my case my diffused light source will be this ring light Maggie bought, but the flash controller costs about $350.00, and the SF-60 flash is about $600.00. My hope is Maggie bites the bullet and pays for this. I'm in austerity mode paying down my bills. Cheap-cheap-cheap...

So now I'm going to be even more like WeeGee. LOL. Also know that even though WeeGee married another woman that his long time girlfriend that stuck with him to the end was a Social Worker. Know that Maggie is a retired Social Worker.

Cal
 
jsrockit said:
Thank you Cal, I feel like I was there... I can imagine it all. Miss you guys... one day I`ll make it back. :)
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John,

I miss you too. Lots of fighting and arguing in the old days.

Now I am truely getting old. Life is so different now. With retirement it is like being a teenager all over again where it is like confronting the question: "What am I going to do for the next 40 years" all over again.

In my case I will enjoy luxury and a rich retirement. My past as living somewhat like a guy who buys Leica and lives like a dirtbag is going to pay off.

I'm doing the second half of an adult ed retirement planning, and figure somehow my fixed income in retirement somehow will exceed my present salary. How did that happen?

Also know that the SL2 makes me mucho happy. I have been waiting 4 years for this camera, and it does seem Leica built it especially for me. When in fact they kinda did: NDA.

How did that happen?

Kinda funny if you read "Flash" a biography about WeeGee. Pretty much a shy guy who ends up going over the top. Looks like I might have to buy a crazy flash kit for a "Maggie" gig. I'm getting there, where I'm doing some crazy things.

Looks like a 4x5 Kill-Zone fixed focus (7-feet) camera will cleverly be built soon. I think it would make both an interesting story and a cool book.

Interesting to note that WeeGee was known to basically shoot at only two distances: 7 feet and 10 feet. Pretty much that is what I kinda do.

My "Kill-Zone" with a 28 FOV was always targeting 7 feet. Remember that biker that I shot from the hip? After I developed the film you asked me if I got the shot. Pretty much was great with perfect framing whithout looking through a VF'er. Basically I shot from the hip because he approached us so fast.

Cal
 
Cal,
Devil Christian and I have been PMing back and forth, I'll send him directly the "rubber wheel" when I uncover it in my studio. LOL.

I have gotten it to pull unperfed 70mm color neg through the A70s, so he thinks he can prolly get it to function in Linhofs. We will see.

Know that I sent a rubber wheel to a friend in British Columbia, who was going to peddle the idea to Tom Abrahamsson's Machinist, but I never heard anything more about the scenario. Christian should roll with this as it is a kewl mod.

Also know that Matt Abelson (Sneebot) and I are Plaubel Makiflex Buds. He once commented that my many projects are "sick". LOL

-Dan
 
MrFujicaman said:
Cal-

You had access to titanium tubing and didn't rebuild a tripod with it? I'm disappointed in you!
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MFM,

I did make a long gaff for fishing off of jetties, and a short gaff for surf fishing with titanium handles. At one point I was pretty serious about building a boat. I had all this stainless steel hardware and tubing stockpiled and did lots of research on using the "West System" of epoxy.

When I took my 84 Jeep Scrambler in for an annual safety inspection for the first time the mechanics all knew I worked for Grumman which was right across from the station. They all crowded under my Jeep admiring all the aircraft parts and hydrolic lines I used as fuel lines. Of particular interest was the clutch mechanism that utilized a motorcycle chain and an idler pully for a linear throw on the clutch peddle. Of course the Corvette engine, the 4-core radiator, and the cut down Ford 9 inch rear with Lincoln Continental rear disc brakes were impressive.

I have one friend who claims I single handedly downsized Grumman. He had a small business and every week I would bring something he could use. I thought of myself as a modern type of Rob-N-Hood because I stole from a big corporation and donated to a small business.

Then my friend Cris was building a race car (Drag race, Challenger) and I gifted him all this aerospace quality stuff to build out his car. Know that Cris has in his garage a vintage famous Funny Car that is rather historic and once was a record holder. How cool is that?

On the 500 acre industrial complex I even had set up an art studio in a trailer that was heated and had electricity. Pretty much raw industrial space that was used for storage, but was private enough to maintain a staging area for my artwork.

I only returned to the visual arts and photography around 2007 during the credit crisis. I made lots of money day-trading oil stocks. When I sold my positions and was flush with cash during the credit crisis I bought people's treasures. That's when I bought a German Version 4 35 Cron and a German 75 Lux as investments/hard assets for "no-money."

Pretty much doubled my money when I sold them.

One of my problems is that I never really focused on any one thing until probably recently. I was a painter, a performance artist, a writer, and now a photographer.

Also I kinda wandered around kinda lost for a while trying to sort out my identity. I have had a disrupted life with so many beginnings and endings...

Cal
 
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