Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/12/11

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Subject: Re: [Leica] A trip
From: Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 11:04:39 -0500

     
     In the interesting message on his trip (below), Mr. Wulff mentioned 
     that he had used slides and that he would be "get[ting] a couple of 
     large pictures printed."  I have long used slides, and MANY years ago, 
     wanting to get a few prints made, I sent some off to Kodak for that 
     purpose.  But the resulting prints were quite poor, with very fuzzy 
     resolution and washed-out colors (compared to the sharp, beautifully 
     colored transparencies)---and this on what were only SMALL prints!  I 
     gather that, in the intervening years, technologies for printing from 
     slides have advanced, and now I'd like to try some prints again.  So 
     my question for Mr. Wulff, or any other group members who may know 
     about this, is what is the best process/technology/etc. to specify in 
     order to get prints matching as closely as possible the transparencies 
     from which they were made?  Thanks much for any help.
     
     Art Peterson
     
     
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: [Leica] A trip
Author:  leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us at internet
Date:    12/10/97 10:04 PM

Well, I'm back from my trip. One month in total, with 3 weeks in Nepal, one 
month in Malaysia and a number of days in Singapore inbetween, and a total 
of about 54 hours flying time (no, I didn't take a DC-3, but a 747 flight 
had headwinds of 300km/h for nearly 20 hours).
     
Nepal was amazing. Kathmandu is a visual mass that is hard to deal with as 
a photographer. Separating visual elements to compose a photograph would 
take a lot more acclimatization time than I had, so I just shot. The trek 
we were on on the side trails south of the Annapurna massif was one of the 
most satisfying trips I have ever been on, and my wife agreed with me, even 
though it is usally a struggle to get her to go camping, and she hates not 
having a shower or bath every day - here she didn't have one for over 2 
weeks. We were hot and sweating on the many uphill sections (and in Nepal, 
if it isn't downhill, it _is_ uphill), and some nights it got down to -20 
degrees Celsius, and it snowed some. I got sick during the trek (no fault 
of the water or other cleanliness issue - the trek was handled very 
professionally, it was a pre-existing condition), so I had a number of days 
of real struggling what with a high fever and rather severe pain, and my 
shooting was rather reduced. Now I'm wondering when I can go back again.
     
Malaysia was intended to be a sort of veg-out-at-the-tropical-beach 
interlude before returning home, but we both enjoyed it too much to just 
sit around, so we wound up driving aver 2500km in the rental car.
     
We met with two LUGgers, one in Singapore (Lee Yan Zhan) and one in 
Kathmandu (Ian Stanley), and I must say that if these two are 
representative of the LUG I will use every opportunity to meet the rest of 
you!
     
I took 2 - M6's, 21 asph, 35 Summicron, 90 Summicron and 135 Tele-Elmar. For 
cities I also had the Noctilux, but not on the trek. I also had the 'other' 
M6 - the Mamiya, and a 120 Noblex. In the 120 cameras I had color neg 
material, and Velvia and Sensia in the Leica's. The Mamiya and Leicas I had 
in a camera bag clipped to the shoulder straps of my backpack during the 
trek, but on the front, so I could get at the stuff easily. The Noblex was 
in a fanny pack, but often travelled inside the backpack during the trek. I 
also had a Gitzo Mountaineer with me, but didn't carry it during the day 
much as I had access to it mornings and evenings from the pack that the 
porters carried during the day.
     
As I have a variety of equipment, it was a bit of a struggle to decide what 
to take. On a lot of trips I have taken Nikon outfits, with 3 bodies and 10 
lenses, but that would have been too hard to handle, especially since I also 
wanted to take MF. I did miss some things, from the 15mm through the PC 
lenses to macro and serious tele, but I worked with what I had. The last 
time I took _only_ Leica stuff on a trip with me for slides was in the 60's, 
and then I had a Viso. In spite of the limitations, I still managed to get 
some decent pictures of lammergeier in flight, which is a bit marginal with 
a 135 on a Leica RF! But then, the picture I have on my site of the blue 
heron is with the same combination. You just shoot a bit differently.
     
I'm starting to sort the images, and a couple of them will make it to my 
web site (probably over the holidays). Meanwhile I'm trying to sort out a 
slide presentation and get a couple of large pictures printed, especially 
from the Noblex negs.
     
     
   *            Henning J. Wulff
  /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
 /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com 
 |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com