Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/12/22

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Subject: Re: [Leica] [OT] Frugal for PAW...
From: John Straus <Mail@SlideOne.com>
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 10:47:18 -0600

on 12/22/01 8:26 AM, J. Gilbert Plantinga at gilplant@hvc.rr.com wrote:

> You're either dreaming or you have an incredible 'hit rate'. The only week
> that I shot only one roll was week #2, and that is one of the weakest pages
> on my site. It was just too damned cold to go out that week. Before my PAW
> project I would shoot about a roll a week, now I'm up to about a dozen!
> That's an AVERAGE week.

WOAH...slow down there big guy ;) I'm trying to work UP TO a roll a week
from a sad 1 a ...month, if that!!! The first big challenge will be getting
my as* out from behind this monitor and SHOOT! As for my hit rate...well we
won't get into that.

I think we all have different ways of looking at the PAW and for different
reasons. I have no problem getting into 'photo mode' when I go on a
vacation. I prepare to shoot a lot (film and time) and usually come back
with good results. It's the non-vacation time that needs work. I need to
look for what is happening around me, here, where I'm at NOW. I didn't used
to be this slack and lazy when I was learning back in the earlier years.
It's time to refresh my mind on why I really enjoy photography...
  
> Souping it yourself is the only way to go, and I'd shoot more color if I had
> the facilities to process it (jobo?), but my 'darkroom' is a changing bag
> and the kitchen sink.

Hey !! That'd be my setup :) but no home color processing for me.

> The big advantage is not the cost savings, but the
> control and quality. I don't think any lab would be willing to go through
> all the compensating agitation tricks I've been learning.

I don't know any tricks but when I hear that the lab just has some guy
processing my B&W by hand, I may as well just do it myself :)

> a 50-roll box of HP5+ is $132 and a 5-liter package of Xtol is $6.99 at B&H.
> Developer is about the only thing that gets cheaper and better at the same
> time - dilute it 1:3  :)

I still have a TON of B&W film here (outdated) that I was also going to
donate to the HS... But I will need chemicals and containers.
 
> I have the Leica 5x loop, which though it is expensive, has a really
> great attachment that holds a strip of negatives perfectly flat, has a
> little hole where you can see the frame numbers through the mask, and a
> ground glass bottom so I can just hold the thing up to an ordinary light -
> no light-box-crook-in-the-neck. It's really much easier to simply evaluate
> the negatives than you think. That piece of Leica glass (actually Schneider,
> I think) will outlast any scanner, high-end or cheap.

I just got a Contax 5x loupe and can't (won't) spend another $200 for the 5x
Leica. But the neg holder and ground glass on it sound neat.

As for evaluating the negs. It's been so long... Previewing a neg is seeming
foreign and be able to say 'could be good'. I'll see if I can dig through
some old ones and start educating my eye to look negatively :)

Thanks
- -- 
John 
Chicago, IL 
http://SlideOne.com
====================

> 
> Good on you for committing to a PAW 2002. My own project has been like
> getting an MFA and turned me into an aspiring but broke pro. It changed my
> life.
> 
> Gilbert
> 
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> 

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