just missed a Rolleiflex on the 'bay.. cheap!

[JoeFriday]

I was planning to do a semi-serious snipe on >this auction< but got distracted by a bright shiny object and missed it.. check it out.. winning bid on a 3.5 Tessar was $113.50

 

[VictorM.]

Lost in a basement? Not used since the seventies? Add the cost of the necessary cla and it's no bargain. Prices on ebay often stagnate in August, making for a good time to look for good deals.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

JoeFriday,
you don't want a rolleiflex, if you got one of those you'd get pictures like this (and who wants that anyway):

 

[JoeFriday]

well, I already have one Rollei.. but I was hoping to pick that one up cheap.. I'm like a woman at the discount rack at Neiman Marcus.. "I know it doesn't fit, but it's only $30!"

but yeah, your pictures suck as usual, Todd 😉

 

[doubs43]

Ya know........ Todd has a point. His pictures are sharp and they're - gasp - SQUARE!

😀

Walker

 

[FrankS]

Square - what up with that?

 

[Todd.Hanz]

square, kinda takes the option of portrait or landscape out of the equation huh? ;-)

 

[JoeFriday]

on the other hand, maybe I'd stop cutting people's heads off with that format

 

[Roman]

I was planning to do a semi-serious snipe on >this auction< but got distracted by a bright shiny object and missed it.. check it out.. winning bid on a 3.5 Tessar was $113.50

That was not such a great deal - Automats rarely go for more than 150 to 180 USD (OK, maybe REALLY MINT ones...), and with those crappy pictures and description, who knows what you would have got...

Roman

 

[Harvey Platter]

Cheap rotten German junk. Who wants it?

(looks at own avatar)

Oh, right!

🙂

 

[Richard Black]

Square, ya that's the ticket! How did we get here? I inherited a Mamiya Sekor C330f from my father and have begun to use it. The image attached was taken with the 55mm, a nice wide for a 120.

 

[Justin Low]

Mine's still for sale, but it's a Xenar lensed one, and at nowhere near that price. 😉

 

[Stephan]

JoeFriday,
you don't want a rolleiflex, if you got one of those you'd get pictures like this (and who wants that anyway):

Nice shots, all of them, what kind of film is that ? It's silky smooooth, I want some 😀

 

[Todd.Hanz]

Tri-X, Xtol 1:1

Todd

 

[Stephan]

Thanks... havent tried Xtol, but i use TriX all the time so this is definitely going to be tested soon 🙂

 

[Roman]

I'm just as impressed by Todd's pictures as anybody else here - but when it comes to the excellent quality of his online pics, I think it is mostly NOT his cameras, and NOT TriX & XTOL (which I have tried myself), and certainly NOT his scanner, but excellent technique with regard to scanning and photoshopping them - Todd, would you let us in on some of your secrets concerning your workflow? Anything special on using PhotoShop tools like 'Unsharp Masking'? Do you use something like Neat Image to get those extra-smooth, glowing, almost grainless skin tones?

ROman

 

[Pherdinand]

Joe, that was not such a great deal on a pre-war automat, i think. I got mine from switzerland via photo.net, for 120 euro with accessories (hood, cap, filter, rolleinar2) - and it came with one week return policy from a pn member w good reputation. The cameram although looking "user", works excellent. Don't worry thus, you did not miss that much.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

Roman,
My scanning workflow consists of scanning on an old Epson 2450 flatbed using vuescan and trying to adjust the setting in such a way as to produce a neutral result (highlight and shadow detail, scan as a color negative). I open the image in photoshop CS, convert to BW using channel mixer (red channel). I then tweak the curves/levels to ensure shadow detail and no blown highlights. Convert to greyscale, this is where I sharpen using unsharp mask, no real secrets, just slide the sliders until you get good sharpness w/o halos. I then tone them, switching to duotone (mostly a quadtone) then back to RGB, set mode to "convert to profile" and chose SRGB, save for web and thats it.
I have used "Noise Ninja" for some of my 35mm stuff to remove some scanner grain (I use a minolta dual scan IV and it seems to focus on the grain which accentuates it in the image), Noise Ninja takes care of it if it is excessive, and thats it!
There really is more to do with exposure and processing than scanning, if you don't have a good negative then things are tougher from the start. Xtol 1:1 or 1:3 has made a difference in my pics, a little sharper that D76 and less grain.
Those pics were shot with a Rolleiflex 3.5F with 75mm planar, the lens and the larger format also lend themselves to a larger tonal scale than I get with 35mm, so it isn't just one thing it's everything combined, IMHO 😉 . Here are a couple more:

all on Tri-x 400, Xtol 1:1, Rollei 3.5F

 

[Roman]

Thanks for explaining your method!
BTW, I've seen those over on photo.net, nice!

Roman