New York June NYC Meet-Up

I have read some of the photography books as "fodder." One thing I didn't really learn is the history of photography, and now I have a familiarity.

Ther are 4 issues of "Aperture," some books of a collection from the Museum Ludwig Cologne, a history of the camera, and a "How To Read A Photography" which is a cool survey of photographers.

I think the book "Art Gangs" I will keep. Pretty much covers part of my history in NYC. Although not mentioned in the book, I was part of a performance collaborative that was part of the marginalized back then.

Cal
 
Just wanted to let people know that Putz's reviews all mention the best aperture for each lens. Know that F8.0 degrades the image (lower contrast). Know that generally I use F5.6 a lot.

Two stops from max aperture seems to be a sweet spot. On exception is the 24/3.8 Elmar which likes to be shot wide open (F3.8 is optimum performance).

Cal
 
MrFujicaman said:
Cal, if you find a Petersen's "Blueprint series-Volume II" I'll buy it if the price is right!
Click to expand...

MFM,

Is the author "Moose" Peterson? He is a Nikon SLR nerd.

I used some of his books to "cherry pick" and collect Nikon gear.

This Edwin Putz book is great if you want to know the "smut" on Leica glass.

I'm so pleased with my 28 Cron, 50 Rigid, and 50 Lux-R "E60."

Although the 50 "E60" is not ASPH it is so corrected that it does well on my SL digital. It also has this balanced smoothness to the bokeh and OOF that is like a Noctilux, but without the light falloff in the corners. I know only F1.4, but what a perfect lens.

I'm so glad I own a Noct-Nikkor. It is another remarkable lens that I cherry picked.

The Nikon 28/2.8 AIS is another highly corrected lens that does well for digital, but since I own a 28 Cron...

For B&W film I love the old single coated lenses. I don't mind that they are not as perfect as modern glass. I found the 35 Lux ASPH Pre-FLE and 35 Cron ASPH to have excessive contrast for me. For some reason the 28 Cron which is also ASPH does not have the boosted contrast I see in the ASPH 35's.

Single coated glass: 28/3.5 Black Canon LTM; 35/1.8 Nikkor in LTM; 50 Rigid version 1 with distance scale in feet only; 45/2.8 Super Rokkor LTM (Minolta); and 65/3.5 Visoflex Elmar with adapter to R-mount.

The 65 Elmar is likely the lowest contrast single coated lens, while the 35/1.8 Nikkor in LTM is likely my most contrasty single coated lens due to a 0.5 filter factor yellow filter built in due to "nuclear hardening."

Kinda funny how I love both the old and the new for different reasons.

Cal
 
Cal, "Petersen's Photographic Blueprint Series-Volume II" was written by Mike Stensvold. The plans for Nokton48's matt print dryer, film dryer and enlarging table came out of that book. There's also a plan for a film washer that might interest you. I can see how, with the proper pipe, you could make a film washer for your 70mm reels.
 
MrFujicaman said:
Cal, "Petersen's Photographic Blueprint Series-Volume II" was written by Mike Stensvold. The plans for Nokton48's matt print dryer, film dryer and enlarging table came out of that book. There's also a plan for a film washer that might interest you. I can see how, with the proper pipe, you could make a film washer for your 70mm reels.
Click to expand...

MFM,

Dan's darkroom is without compromise.

In my case all I need is a basic darkroom. Know that I have German glass and a Besseler 23 (non-XL) in public storage.

In comparision with Dan's darkroom mine is mucho ghetto. As long as I can make prints up to 20x24 I be happy.

The big thing for me would to have a large vacuum frame so I could contact print digital negatives using my Epson 7800 (AKA Jersey Barrier).

I found a JOBO that can hold three of my fifteen foot 70mm reels As per Dan's advice I secured a Uniroller for about $30.00. The reversing switch was inoperable, and I made it a single rotation direction. I just have to manually reverse the drum's position.

BTW like Dan I have a set of 3 1/2 gallon Kodak hard rubber dip and dunk tanks and a Nikkor rack filled with 120 reels.

Hmmm... Perhaps I'm not as crazy as Dan, but then again not so far behind.

Cal
 
Cal, My copy of Petersen's "Photographic Equipment you can make" has plans for a vaccum print easel. I think I still have another copy someplace.

If you want it let me know.

I used a "XL" model 23C once...I thought it wasn't all that rigid. An adjustable enlarging table makes more sense to me.

If you want to see my darkroom, go over to large format photography forum and start with page 76 of "show me your darkroom"





Calzone said:
MFM,

Dan's darkroom is without compromise.

In my case all I need is a basic darkroom. Know that I have German glass and a Besseler 23 (non-XL) in public storage.

In comparision with Dan's darkroom mine is mucho ghetto. As long as I can make prints up to 20x24 I be happy.

The big thing for me would to have a large vacuum frame so I could contact print digital negatives using my Epson 7800 (AKA Jersey Barrier).

I found a JOBO that can hold three of my fifteen foot 70mm reels As per Dan's advice I secured a Uniroller for about $30.00. The reversing switch was inoperable, and I made it a single rotation direction. I just have to manually reverse the drum's position.

BTW like Dan I have a set of 3 1/2 gallon Kodak hard rubber dip and dunk tanks and a Nikkor rack filled with 120 reels.

Hmmm... Perhaps I'm not as crazy as Dan, but then again not so far behind.

Cal
Click to expand...
 
MrFujicaman said:
Cal, My copy of Petersen's "Photographic Equipment you can make" has plans for a vaccum print easel. I think I still have another copy someplace.

If you want it let me know.

I used a "XL" model 23C once...I thought it wasn't all that solid. An adjustable enlarging table makes more sense to me.

If you want to see my darkroom, go over to large format photography forum and start with page 76 of "show me your darkroom"
Click to expand...

MFM,

The conflict for me is living in Madhattan. Other than work the only other reason to live here is because of Maggie.

I need studio space and to me public darkrooms are like public restrooms: use them only if you have to. LOL.

I didn't realize you are a large format dude. Much respect. I try to emulate large format, even though I only shoot small and medium format.

I kinda laugh at the post where someone says they hate Fuji Acros because of its lack of grain and because it looks "too digital." This same poster also would dislike large format photography I assume.

I own a 4x5 Linhof Tech IV and some 4x5 HP5 Chris gifted me, but so far no large format shooting.

I surely could use the vacuum frame plans because one day I will need a vacuum frame.

OFF TOPIC: Saturday I watched this documentary on Janet Guthrie, the first woman to race in the Indy 500 back in 1977. Pretty much an exclusive boys club back then. This woman had balls and suffered great discrimination. Her racing career ended prematurely due to lack of sponsorship, but she placed in the top-ten in her first Indy 500 race (9th I believe) and finished 5th in another Indy 500 race.

Along came a big deal from Pat Patrick, but she would not abandon the man who first offered her the opportunity to race with the boys in the Indy 500. This woman also had integrity.

It was sad how eventually she was defeated. "Gatekeeping" at its best.

On a happier note I saw a trailer for some film called "Ford Against Ferrarai" that stars Matt Damion. Looks to have some great racing footage. One scene is this executive gets into a Ford F40 as a passenger and the driver Matt Damion who is playing Carrol Shelby asks if the exec is ready, and then Carrol Shelby basically terrorizes the passenger.

Pretty much did a zero to 100 and back to zero in under 10 seconds like in an AC Cobra with a 429 sideoiler.

Reminds me of this engineer at Grumman I disliked that I took on a joyride one lunchtime. I used the crown on the road and a dip to launch my Jeep Scrambler and for about a half second or so my lifted truck lost contact with the pavement. My speed was 55 MPH, so we were traveling 80 feet a second, and perhaps my tires were not touching the ground for 60 feet. Pretty much I didn't know what would happen on the landing.

I was coming in a gate; the guard ran into the shelter for cover; and when he came out he was preparing to draw his gun; but when he saw the scared look on my passenger who was catatonic with me laughing with tears in my eyes he just waved me in.

He also laughed and motioned like he was cleaning a pile of crap out of his pants while pointing to my passenger who remained unresponsive. LOL.

Know my Jeep had a cut-down Ford 9 inch heavy half tone rear axle with Lincoln Continental disc brakes, so the Jeep squatted like a BMW M3 when I hit the brakes hard. I had to upgrade the axle because the original OEM axle I had broken, but that is another story...

You have to know that my victim I had learned almost got killed in a car accident, and because of this he owned two Volvo's. Prettymuch I traumatized him again. I was mean, and I liked it. LOL.

Cal
 
Okay, I can either copy the plans and mail them to you or mail you the whole book. Let me know which you want and give me a mailing address in a PM.
 
Today I'l be picking up my Rolex Sub, back from repair service. I also have my Leica SL2-MOT with 50 Lux "E60" to do some shooting.

Wearing two expensive watches at the same time, especially a when one is a GMT is useful when one has to think of time zones as if a currency trader. I think when I retire I will be doing this, so I have some of the equipment. Pretty interesting how the news drives prices. Know that my masters in journalism helps me create narratives from fact to build stories, and this is very useful.

Joe mentions that he has poor luck with Ilford films, but I think they all have to be pulled a little. HP5 at 320 ISO, same for Delta 400. Is FP4 really a 125 ISO film? I like it better at 100. Perhaps I like more shadow detail as well as denser negatives. Realize that I exploit compensating effects (reduced contrast) via reduced aggitation and using a strong developer. I guess my negatives look a bit HDR even though it is analog.

With Tri-X I get an honest 400 ISO and more film speed in any developer. Pretty much I'll be doing this shooting to test my Ilford film speeds to dial them in.

So the SL2-MOT dates back to 1975 and is 44 year old camera. I bought the SL2-MOT at Adorama for $300.00 with a dead meter and a desilvering prism; bought a second beat up SL2 for $200.00 that had a working meter and perfect prism; and sent it off to Sherry to have her build me a perfect camera using the best parts from each.

The SL2-MOT was a shelf queen. I suspect that the Cds cell died early on and the camera went unused for decades. The donor SL2 was dented and so well used that the lens mount needed to be replaced. It looked like this camera had been in many a street fight.

So this camera prevents me from buying a Nikon F2 to have a fully manual SLR. Understand I also have a F3P for the Noct-Nikkor.

I'm a bit stressed because I have to build out a mountain bike for Sunday's Westchester Mountain Bike Festival. Ignacio is assembling his crew and we will meet-up at Metro North at 125th Street early morning.

Maggie will be flying out to Saint Louis. I might take off Monday to develop film. I find developing film a rewarding and satisfying vacation. I get to concentrate on my process, and I live in a private world/domain of my own creation. I love this artistic solitude.

Cal
 
MrFujicaman said:
Okay, I can either copy the plans and mail them to you or mail you the whole book. Let me know which you want and give me a mailing address in a PM.
Click to expand...

MFM,

PM sent. Either is great. Do what is easiest for you. Remember I am a slacker dude and inadvertently I have breed and encouraged others to be like me.

John would call us "Happy Fools."

Cal
 
So the plot thickens. Pretty much "Ford Verses Ferrarai" is a notable grudge match. Release is in November 2019. The goal is to win the endurance race 24 hours at Lemans. Backdrop was a bad business deal and hurt feelings as well as honor. Pretty much almost like a war movie except about the development of the F40 (AKA Ferrarai killer).

Enzo Ferrarai was a winner who loved to win and Matt Damon and Christian Bale battle execs at Ford, you know A-holes, so the story is "a David verses Goliath: verses Goliath" story. Like in street fighting 1970's style, pretty much beat your opponent even though he is on the ground. "Brutal," I say.

Kinda reminds me of when I worked at Grumman where I kinda operated like a Navy SEAL within a Fortune 500 Company that was the fourth largest aerospace company in the U.S.

I had lots of friends, but I also had enemies. Pretty much my job was to be like a street thug: no rules. Someone has to do the dirty work. LOL.

This looks to be a high dollar film.

Cal
 
There is another film that came before "Ford Verses Ferrari" called "The 24 hour war."

Some of the footage shows fires, crashes, and drivers being rescued. Closely resembles war footage for real.

Pretty historic event. Almost like a gladiator film except with race cars representing two empires.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
Joe mentions that he has poor luck with Ilford films, but I think they all have to be pulled a little. HP5 at 320 ISO, same for Delta 400. Is FP4 really a 125 ISO film? I like it better at 100. Perhaps I like more shadow detail as well as denser negatives. Realize that I exploit compensating effects (reduced contrast) via reduced aggitation and using a strong developer. I guess my negatives look a bit HDR even though it is analog.



With Tri-X I get an honest 400 ISO and more film speed in any developer. Pretty much I'll be doing this shooting to test my Ilford film speeds to dial them in.





Cal
Click to expand...


Out of rule of thumb I always shot HP5 at 250-320 and got it Developed in Dil.E. 7:30, 10s agitation each minute

Last weekend at the camera club a member told me the faucet thermometer is wrong so instead of 20C I had been cooking film at 24C.
Perfectly good negs anyways... Printed straight.

TriX was reengineered in 2004 IIRC so should be a bit modern vs HP5. I guess Ilford has only tuned imperceptible stuff, if they had to at all.

Went out for a daytrip to rural Scandinavia and many places seemed like the US south in aesthetic, corroborated by a film photo friend!

Because toy cameras began to chase me, I had to give a try Fomapan. Less than $4/120 roll. Fun film. That one is actually almost half box speed as they got the ISO tested in speed increasing developer.
The 100 in a holga on a sunny day worked great. I ordered a brick of the 200 to run at 125 and do more loose shooting stuff.

I will try some flash stuff as traded a thrift camera for a speedlight.
 
Cal, while I have 4 X 5 cameras, I haven't used them since I moved here in 1999. Limited space to develop film in, no place to print ( until I built the darkroom) lead to the 4 by 5's being shelf queens. The high price of sheet film didn't help either! Now that the darkroom's up and running, I might defrost some film and use them a bit. I'm on Large Format Photo forum because they lean to the darkroom side of things.
 
MrFujicaman said:
Cal, while I have 4 X 5 cameras, I haven't used them since I moved here in 1999. Limited space to develop film in, no place to print ( until I built the darkroom) lead to the 4 by 5's being shelf queens. The high price of sheet film didn't help either! Now that the darkroom's up and running, I might defrost some film and use them a bit. I'm on Large Format Photo forum because they lean to the darkroom side of things.
Click to expand...

MFM,

Understandable. I sometimes lurk on the large format forum because it is a bit out of the box from RFF.

Also seems like they have higher standards for IQ and print quality that goes with the format.

In many ways I shoot, develop and print as if I'm a large format shooter.

Christian who is a large format shooter paid me a great compliment when I showed him some of my 6x9 negatives on a light table, "With negatives like these you don't need a 4x5," he said.

I also admire how LF shooters dig in. They kinda go basic.

Cal
 
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