farlymac
PF McFarland
farlymac
PF McFarland
farlymac, nice looking camera! As far as I am concerned, any Solinar-lensed Agfa is worth sprucing up with whatever mods or aids it takes to make it more comfortable to use.
It occurs to me that if you wanted to be really slick about it you could cut out and adhere a new focus scale directly onto the focusing ring itself, rather than the look-up chart on the back. Aside from being able to set the focus directly in your preferred units without having to do a conversion, another advantage is that you could make the scale marks at whatever convenient intervals you liked (e.g., 3.5', 4', 5', 6'', 8' 10', 15', 30', inf), instead of the odd numbers. The main downside is that it would take some a bit of effort to work out exactly where to place your scale marks since the focus scale isn't linear. But it certainly can be done.
Hmmm... and then you could even market them on eBay for say, $5 each.
Well, it's not my camera, and I wanted to get it back to the owner in a reasonable time frame.
PF
Greyscale
Veteran
farlymac
PF McFarland
Okay everybody, calm down. This isn't a meters vs feet thread. I usually go ahead and use the meter scale as is, but my brain is getting a bit recalcitrant lately, so thought I'd share my lazy man's way of distance scale conversion.
What I like about having a rangefinder, or using an SLR, is I don't have to worry about such things. But they're not like the good old cameras, where you really have to work at getting a good shot. And there are less things to break on something like an Agfa/Ansco 120 folder.
PF
What I like about having a rangefinder, or using an SLR, is I don't have to worry about such things. But they're not like the good old cameras, where you really have to work at getting a good shot. And there are less things to break on something like an Agfa/Ansco 120 folder.
PF
Michael Markey
Veteran
I find it difficult to easily visualise meters so I always work in feet.
I know that my foot is a foot and that`s how I stride jumps for horses too.
I know that my foot is a foot and that`s how I stride jumps for horses too.
photo_fred
photo_fred
I'm a carpenter in Canada and use both. Metric is more straightforward though.Easier to use.
Moto-Uno
Moto-Uno
Which of course begs the question, how long is that 2x4 stud ? Peter
And I thought I was the only person that'd seen "Young Frankenstein", after whom I'd
named my Frankencamera!!!
And I thought I was the only person that'd seen "Young Frankenstein", after whom I'd
named my Frankencamera!!!
Murray Kelly
Well-known
Twice as long as from the middle to one end, of course. Measure twice, cut once.
Yes, the Camaro was built (and designed?) in Canada so it's not the true American muscle car after all? I read that the Holden SS is being sold as the Chevrolet SS. That will certainly be all metric.
Can't remember when I last had to dredge up a Whitworth or SAE spanner.
To the OP ; you could print up one of those cards that you hold at arm's length, sight the target with the L eye and read off the distance in meters with the R eye. I keep one laminated in my wallet for near work. Has to be for his inter-pupilary distance and his personal arm's length. Google simple range finder card. There is a program with boxes to fill in.
farlymac
PF McFarland
Thanks for reminding me, Murray. I've had that site bookmarked for a while.
Now, if I could just get an Aussie Ford Ranger without having to move there.
PF
Moto-Uno
Moto-Uno
"Spanner" is that down under for wrench? Peter
Murray Kelly
Well-known
Pretty well. A spanner is a ring, box, open-ended, tube, hydraulic line, or lens etc. If you were to ask me for a wrench I tend to think big and oily like an 'F' or Crescent or Stilson. Completely familiar with its use but the word doesn't get much usage here.
I googled 'lens spanner' and mostly came up with the two words used together as in 'spanner wrench'. Presumably to cater for both worlds.
The main wrench I get is when the taxes bill arrives!
Richard G
Veteran
Pretty well. A spanner is a ring, box, open-ended, tube, hydraulic line, or lens etc. If you were to ask me for a wrench I tend to think big and oily like an 'F' or Crescent or Stilson. Completely familiar with its use but the word doesn't get much usage here.
I googled 'lens spanner' and mostly came up with the two words used together as in 'spanner wrench'. Presumably to cater for both worlds.
The main wrench I get is when the taxes bill arrives!
Yes, almost exclusively 'spanner' here and in England too from memory. And indeed Murray's last line uses the word 'wrench' as we might most commonly use it.
__--
Well-known
I find the opposite: if I need to estimate a distance to set manually, say, for street photography, and want 2.5m, I can pretty much "see" where that would be, but find it difficult to estimate where 8 feet would be. That is because, in my view, it's much easier to visualize, for these types of distances, by the yard or the meter than to do so with a the smaller measure of a foot.
—Mitch/Chiang Mai
Chiang Tung Days [download link for pdf file for book project]
Michael Markey
Veteran
Interesting ...I guess its just one of these things which for some reason I didn`t assimilate .
When I hear things expressed in metric length or height it doesn`t mean anything to me.
Now ..where did I put that ten bob note.
When I hear things expressed in metric length or height it doesn`t mean anything to me.
Now ..where did I put that ten bob note.
Murray Kelly
Well-known
Farlymac I have bad news. Ford and GM are pulling out of Australia in the next 2 years. Only Toyota will remain, but for how long?
farlymac
PF McFarland
Farlymac I have bad news. Ford and GM are pulling out of Australia in the next 2 years. Only Toyota will remain, but for how long?
From what I understand about that, they are only stopping manufacturing? Most likely all their future vehicles for the Aussie market will be made in Asia.
PF
pagpow
Well-known
OK, I'll bite. If someone finds it hard to estimate feet/yards from meters, how will the measure the inclination of their head in degrees? For that matter, how would I? Isn't that in fact harder than adding a foot every three meters, ie 3 meters are 3 yards plus a foot, or 10 feet?
This is not intended to be quite as snarky as it may sound. I am curious.
Giorgio
R
rick oleson
Guest
The Metric system was actually adopted by the United States in 1893; but being the freedom-loving folks that we are, nobody was ever forced to convert to it, and without some form of coordinated conversion, individual manufacturers never want to be the first to change to something new and be the odd man out. So we still have fasteners, raw materials, etc, made in traditional sizes and generally have to go overseas to get metric materials. This may be solved by the continuing tendency for us to source EVERYTHING from overseas, so metric will become as easy to find as traditional materials.
