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Approaching the year end, things are rather quiet in Japan. We spend our time tidying and cleaning up the home, office and of course photographic equipment. Shops and post offices will close for a few days soon, so please expect a slower-than-usual turnaround of your orders.
We wish everybody a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year 2005!
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Water trough in fusebententoukai temple
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Door to tower in fusebententoukai temple
I had a vertical day it seems. It was bloody cold and windy, no sun and flat lighting. While this is Japanese temple stuff, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy with these first results of the drum.
Fuji Acros 100 rated 64 in Xtol 1:2, 9:30 min at 60 rpm [yeah, baby]
The Megaperls Drum and Base in operational and sleep mode
In my quest for even development of 4“x5†sheet film, I have built an insert for an old Cibachrome print development tank I bought, errr, about 12 years ago. Not only lets that switch me from tray to rotation development (have to build a baseboard with some castors I bought as well), but I can also do the processing with the lights on and don’t have to step into spilled liquids in the dark.
Of course I still have to load that beast in the dark, so let’s see how that goes. At this point it can take four sheets, but I really would like it to take eight. Planned for Mark II then.
Downside is I have to to test out development times from scratch, although the Kodak Xtol sheet gives some times for rotation, however my rotation is by hand and probably fairly uneven, not necessarily a bad thing… I have to think of a motor drive as well, maybe.
Come to think of it, the other good thing about the drum is that I can develop prints in it. Err, that is what it is actually designed for at the first place.
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Used car sales in Tsukushino, Abiko
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Storage building, part of traditional Japanese house, Tsukushino
I could not wait for the full two days for the bond to dry, so I took the camera out this afternoon for some careful test shots, which I have just finished developing.
The negatives are still hanging to dry (naturally, on the brilliant Drying hangers for sheet film ;-), but I can already tell the difference just by looking at them.
Tasty, crispy, contrasty negatives with nice shadow detail and a clean look that I only knew from the trusty Neopan Presto. This is still Kodak Tri-X Pro. So looking good this far, to be continued tomorrow morning, when I will scan them.
Kameratyp: LEICA MP
Farbe: Silbern verchromt
Rückwicklung: wie MP
Deckkappe Gravur: Classic
Bedienelemente: MP style silbern verchromt
Belederung: Nappa racing green
Suchervergrößerung: 0.58
Sucherrahmen-Kombinationen: 0.58
Perșnliche Gravur РFarbe: schwarz
Persönliche Gravur – Rückseite: Unterschrift
Preis: 615000 JPY
Virtual Leica fondling at Leica à la carte… you did notice the donations button below, didn’t you?
I have been struggling with some weird behaviour of the new view camera and while equipment is usually the last thing to blame in your photography, this time it turns out I have done everything right (well, who knows) and, to put it bluntly, there was a bloody hole in the camera! I bought it from a friendly gentleman on eBay in the UK and according to him, the camera was serviced in London by an outfit called Teamwork. Excuse my directness, but they did an absolutely crap job. Obvious internal parts were missing before and now this. This reminds me of the London days, where once a bunch of incompetents called Albion Computers (an authorised Apple Service Provider) repaired my iMac to death, removing my hard disk, memory and other parts in the process, and refusing to put things back together (full story here: How Albinos shrank my iMac – this letter is one of many I had to write in the UK). Moral of the story: stay away from those people and appreciate Japanese service while you can.
Due to earlier unexpected popular demand, the immensely useful drying hanger for sheet film had to be taken out of the catalogue for a couple of weeks. Now it is back, although again in limited supplies and waiting periods may occur. If you want one of those under the Xmas tree, now is the time to put in the order.
In other news, a customer in Norway reported a delivery time of just over two days using trackable EMS service from Japan. This is almost equalling the speed of on-board courier service!