Cal, what are you bringing to the next meet-up (camera wise)? 🙂
I'll have to bring the silver Df and the 60mm macro. I think I need a close up of "the Lightbulb."
John,
I will bring the Nikon 28/1.4 for Bob for sure. Likely will bring the D3X at least as a lens cap.
Been a bit Fuji ("Texas Leica") centric lately. I just got a second Fujica 150/5.6 that has an issue with intermittent shutter firing (I think the shutter in the lens does not get cocked) that needs to be repaired. I already have a 100/3.5 AE that is with Frank Marshman that appears to have a dead CdS cell, so one lens at a time. My first 150/5.6 has about a third of its coating missing (likely wasn't cleaned properly before the vacuum deposition process to apply the single coat).
With the new Epson 7800 (24 inch, 131 pounds) the recent emphasis is scaling up printing operations, and this is where things are getting crazy. I need to bulk up on ink and will buy 700ml bottles of ink. The ink alone will cost about $2K. Then there is paper at $220.00 a roll for 24"x50.' Basically only 16, 24x36 inch prints per roll. Understand that the new Jon Cone refillable carts hold about 350ml so after an initial fill (About 1/4 of that volume goes into filling the lines and the dampers,) 700ml is not a lot of ink to start with.
I expect "MJ" to be a rather thirsty printer that gets greedy with paper. The carts that are now filled with Piezoflush and the gallon of Piezoflush set me back $620.00. Luckily these same carts also will fit an Epson 44 inch printer and always be used to store a printer indefinately.
Figure that 2 ml of ink is utilized to cover a square foot and that a 24x36 inch print is 6 square feet, and compound that in my experience that the Piezography process lays down even more ink onto the paper. Now the numbers are getting scarry and realize that I already spent close to $5K on paper and ink so far this year.
Because I live in NYC I don't own a car, but the way I print (with all the best) it is like owning and maintaining a car as far as expense. Kinda funny how at PhotoPlusExpo when they ask you if your annual budget for gear and supplies exceeds $10K. LOL.
Now understand that it takes about 17 minutes to print a 13x19 and that a 24x36 inch print is 3.5 times as much area. Basically it could be an hour (unidirectional for highest quality) to print my 7 shades of black, and then a second hour to lay down the "Gloss Overcoat." Now imaging trying to print big in a 650 square foot i-bedroom apartment filled with your girlfriend's clothes who is a fashion blogger. Add in my 14 pound ghetto-dog and pretty much life is crazy.
The next big move is a drum scanner. Basically since I made all my negatives for wet printing I kinda will need a real scanner that has a photomultiplier tube because of my negative density. This is what I mean when I say: Crazy is good.
Basically I have a three year plan to get ready for art mode.
Cal
