Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hello, all! Well, I've been off list for more than a year but I've now lurked on and off for a month. Since I left the LUG I moved across the country to New Hampshire, was reunited with my lovely spouse (we spent grad school on opposite coasts: not a recommended stratagem), started a new job (much suffering but still probably the right choice). Anyway, it's great to see that Grant, Dr. Blacktape, Deadman, Tina, Rabiner, Small, are still around! Yay. I guess I will begin with a short story. I'm a molecular biologist with an interest in optical microscopy. In June I had the chance to take the Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy Course at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole. Now, this is the Kahuna of microscopy courses: 8 consecutive 14-hour days covering optics, CCD and intensifier architecture and use, image processing, etc. After this course I think I finally understand the technical aspects of Erwin's reports 8^). N****, Olympus, Zeiss and (of course) Leica (yes, I realize that the camera and microscopy organizations have fissioned) -- all provide numerous technical staff and millions of bucks worth of their latest-greatest diffraction-limited, 80%-quantum-efficiency, sample-movement-with-10 nm-accuracy toys. Last day of the course I brought out the M6 to get some end-of-course snapshots, and the L and Z folks were *enormously* enthusiastic... several of them had M2's 3's and 4's but none had an M6 - let alone with the 35 Summilux ASPH. None reported owning a Contax G ;^). Anyway, this was an optics-lover's paradise, even better than getting a personal tour of the Celestron telescope factory several years ago. Guess I'd better visit Solms and take the tour... As for photography I've been less active than I'd have liked during the last year, except for photomicrography (the Big Paper is in review at Cell). But now I'm looking at slide scanners and inkjets. I will watch for your opinions on scanners (<$1000) and archival inkjet inks and papers with rapt (rabid?) attention. More later, Alex .......................................................................... Alexey Merz • alexey@webcom.com • alexey@dartmouth.edu • 603/464-6840 http://www.webcom.com/alexey • PGP public key: http://pgp5.ai.mit.edu/ I am, as I said, inspired by the biological phenomena in which chemical forces are used in repetitious fashion to produce all kinds of weird effects (one of which is the author). -Richard Feynman