..but Andy has two digital cameras, at least use them initially to check any camera out........and all separate exposure meters are theoretical in that how does it know what amount of light is going through the lens and camera to the film, when the lens is stopped down. Olympus OM owners will now stand up and say "yeah their cameras measure the final exposure on the film plane with a film loaded"
(why I else would I be messing around with film when everyone else is using digital ) and I've had quite a bit of experience of disassesmbling and 'servicing' SLRs. So, I immedialtely started stripping down the new camera to investigate the condition and see what might need replacing/cleaning. As I expected, the light seals were all just black goo, but that's an easy thing to fix. One of the focusing knobs was bent too, but I finally managed to get the cover off that, hammer it flat and get it back together again.) and a micro fibre cloth, where a solvent was required and just used a mild detergent window cleaner for the other parts. Everything went well and all that was left was to scrape the black gunge off the rear door and apply the new foam strips.. Looking through the viewfinder, I could still see some little specks of crud and so I decided to take the 'focus screen' out and clean it with some after shave. What I didn't realise is that the glass part that came out in the metal frame was not actually the focus screen :thumbsdown: - it was just a glass cover for the screen, with the plastic focus screen underneath. Consequently, when I rubbed some after shave onto both sides of it and buffed it off with the cloth, one side was squeaky clean and the other side was decidedly 'fuzzy' .. I (very wrongly) assumed that this 'professional' TLR had the same kind of (real) glass focusing screen as my Nikon F3 (SLR), but we know what assumptions can do, don't we :nono:..
OK, I have no ego - you can all line up to tell me what a prat I am and I promise not to disagree with any of you.
I collected the Mamiya C-300f from the post office tonight and opened the box with crossed fingers. What I saw was roughly what I expected - a dirty, but basically sound C-330f.
Now, I'm a born tinkerer
I cleaned some of the body parts using after shave (Lacoste, for those who are interested
Before doing that though, I cleaned the mirror (from inside) and the glass focusing screen (or so I thought :bonk
On further investigation, I realised that the focus screen was just a shim of plastic underneath the glass and that I had ruined it by 'melting' the surface with solvent
So, I now have to buy a new focus screen before I can do any photography with this particular camera and as I have just been discovering on eBay, screens for these cameras are far from easy to find :bang:.
I hope that by admitting, publicly, to my own stupidity, impatience and laziness (to read up on the camera first), I might possibly save someone else from making the same mistake. There's no need to comiserate with me - I took a gamble on 'knowing what I was doing' and I lost
It may now be some considerable time before I can share any photos from my first MF camera with you all - sorry about that :shrug:.
I bet Ansel Adams never had this trouble
Noooooooooo!
Is this one?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MAMIYA-TL...ography_Screen_Protectors&hash=item1e5f58d86d
Heather
. Maybe I should just set f/16 (or whatever it goes to) and learn to love infinite DOF !?
I understand your situation, i'm a tinkerer too, had my cameras in pieces more times than i can count, some of them didnt make it back :shake:
!? ...), then I should at least have no 'disagree' between viewfinder and focal plane focus :shrug:.!
...) and now the door shuts tight, without the slight rattle that used to accompany it., I can clearly see that the slower speeds are accurate and that they do indeed get progressively faster. Each aperture setting works as it should and intermediate settings (between the clicks) also seem to be represented (which is lucky, as there appears to be no other way to dial in any form of exposure compensation :shrug. ...!
A fair price, considering that they come with the metal frame and could therefore be easily exchanged, IMO. I also get the choice between two different designs. If I can't find a cheaper alternative, I'll get myself one and the camera will then be in considerably better shape than it was when I got it and ready to rawk
Possibly, I don't really know what they look like :shrug:...) and some of the shots are badly OOF. That part is no surprise, as the focus screen is almost useless and I really had to guestimate the distances :shrug:..
) didn't help those that survived.
. Film was Ilford Delta 100 (not my favourite, but all I could get at short notice), developed in Rodinal 1/25 (9 mins @ 20C).
.
. - I'm not exactly bowled over by the difference between these scans and those of my 35mm negs :|. They're still not nearly as detailed as RAW files from my D700 and even that is more 'pixelly' than I would ideally like. Oh well ...
So, as explained above, focusing issues due to the knackered focus screen made most of my test exposures unfit to share and the sloppy developing (with an underfilled tank
Anyway, I've tidied up what was left and here are a the survivors
And that's it :shrug: - the best that I could manage to get out of my scanner (at 4,800 dpi, with a .TIF file of 220MB per scan, reduced to a 900 pixel .jpeg :nuts
Initial impression
God dammit!
Initial impression
Well I can see some medium format quality showing through, so it's a good start
.!.. I partially concur (although I think that I need to consider cropping my future MF shots, as the square format isn't always ideal and quickly gets boring, IMO)! Love shot 1 especially. What scanner are you using? A decent MF scan vs an equally decent 35mm scan is day and night, especially with 6x6/6x7 upwards
I miss MF
.
True enough, Samuel. In fact, I have sharpened these in Lightroom, using about 90/1.0/1.0 (IIRC). That's quite a lot more than I would use for digital images of the same size.. I also noticed that it costs 2,000GBP .
. I have 5 rolls of Velvia 50 on the way (well, I've ordered it; I don't know for sure that it's coming), so that could prove interesting .
Unless you are queueing outside my front door, I don't see any queue...
Nope the viewfinder on the Bronica SQ series is I think 94 or 95% so when you get your images back you sometimes find more on than you orginally framed.
ChrisR said:
