Re: [Leica] can't beat the minilab

["Gary Todoroff" <datamaster@humboldt1.com>]

Hurray for Mini-Labs! Yesterday I shot aerial photos with an old Minolta SRM
(M for motorized) and 58/1.2 lens with a cheapo Soligar fisheye attachment
screwed to the front - talk about "un-Leica" glass!

But all the client needed was some wide-angle 35mm prints of the ground
around the stereo pair taken by my Hasselblad ELM with 80mm. The 35mm images
did not need to be particularly sharp or proportional - they just needed to
show ridges, streams, roads, etc surrounding the narrower stereo pair, to
help photo-interpret the medium format image.

With Costco's minilab five minutes away, I was able to drop off film, taste
some yummy sample Costco foods, run a quick errand, then pick up film again
in an hour to see if the lens/attachment/film/exposure experiment all worked
together. It worked great! Color looks very good, the image was quite sharp
on 4x6 prints altho soft around the corners (as expected), with plenty of
detail for identifying the landscape. The mini-lab did a great job for what
was needed. What a drudgery it would have been to develop and print those
myself!

BTW, for those who followed my Coast Guard helicopter postings about two
months ago, the shoot yesterday was my first production run in a Cessna 182.
Weather here has been horrible, and many of the aerial transects are under
deep snow east of Eureka right now. Finally yesterday, I was able to try out
the new Hasselblad mount along with the 35mm fisheye shots. Hope to be
comfortable enough with the setup soon to be able to start taking lots of
Leica shots out the open window, too. If you could see all of the forests we
flew over constantly for four hours yesterday, you would know why I usually
sign off as . . .

Gary Todoroff
Tree LUGger